Several Civil Service departments require urgent action for them to be capable of carrying out their tasks effectively for the country, according to the report  ‘Fit for Purpose’, produced by Reform - the independent think-tank. The report noted that while senior bankers have been called to account, there had been much less scrutiny of the mandarins who failed to deliver the “effective administration of Britain”. It added that while ministers are accountable to the electorate, civil servants “are an invisible and unaccountable group, all but immune to scrutiny”.
Compared to other developed countries, in Britain ministers “pull the levers and nothing happens” it added. “A lack of accountability permeates every rank of the service”. The study says that both Labour and Conservative parties fail to grasp the “urgency and scale” of the problem.The worst departments, listed as having at least one or more ‘Urgent Development Areas’, are listed below.

• Her Majesty’s Treasury (HMT)
• Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)
• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) – all areas need development, two urgently
• Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
• Department for Transport (DfT)
• Department of Health (DH) - ‘of serious concern’
• Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS)
• Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
• Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)
• Ministry of Defence (MoD)
• Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) – now Ministry of Justice

…in other words nearly all of the Civil Service. Add this to the damning Channel 4 Dispatches programme last week on ‘How They Waste Your Billions’, and it seems that a complete overhaul of our inefficient Civil Service and its out-dated practices is long overdue.

The British Citizen proposes that the National Audit Office is used even more to highlight and publish examples of over-expenditure and government waste, and then for a complete assessment of all operations in Whitehall to be carried out without delay.

We need to save money, but we also need a Civil Service which works efficiently and serves our best interests as citizens.
At the moment it seems to be the other way round.