Sir Bob Kerslake is to be the new head of the Civil Service in a shake-up of senior mandarins in Whitehall.

Civil service recruitment is too slow and £35m a year could be saved, the Whitehall spending watchdog says.

The independence of the civil service has "become an excuse for zero accountability", according to a hard-hitting report on Whitehall's performance.

DAVID Cameron has ordered the head of the civil service to review contacts between the media and Whitehall departments in the wake of the phone- hacking scandal.

The government faces a legal challenge over the civil service redundancy scheme after proposed changes were rejected by members of the main Whitehall union.

Damian McBride is a civil servant - and as such is bound by the Civil Service Code. Here are some juicy bits: "As a civil servant, you...are expected to carry out your role with dedication and a commitment to the Civil Service and its core values: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. In this code: "integrity" is putting the obligations of public service above your own personal interes...

Former trade minister Lord Jones brought fresh embarrassment on the government today when he claimed that half the civil service should be sacked. Jones told MPs that Whitehall could be run with "half as many" civil servants and that he had been amazed during his time in government by how many staff "deserved the sack". The ex-Confederation of British Industry chief also described being a junior m...

Outsiders did not appear to perform better than career civil servants and in some cases did worse, struggling to adapt to the political environment of Whitehall, a cross-party committee said

CIVIL servants in Scotland have been largely protected from the effects of job cuts compared with their counterparts in Whitehall.

WHITEHALL mandarins have developed a "negligent position" towards Scotland since the SNP came to power, the former head of the Scottish civil service has claimed.