At Tory conference today, @rosskempsell chaired a superb @Policy_Exchange panel on the civil service — offering rare insight into govt plans for Whitehall
It confirmed "hard rain's gonna fall" thesis, yes, but possibly on ministers as well as mandarins
Some highlights here 1/
Lord Theodore Agnew, Cabinet Office minister + key figure behind Whitehall revolution, revealed "I'm pushing very very hard to get senior civil service posts out of London"
There's too much "metropolitan elite type thinking", it's "suffocating", stifles "diversity of thought" 2/
The clear implication is this will not merely be junior officials. Nor limited to quangos or arms-length bodies - ie ONS to Newport or Environment Agency to Bristol in the past
"The key element" he said, is getting "higher propotion of senior civil servants" outside the M25 3/
Baroness Simone Finn, non-executive board member of Cabinet Office, says there's "outrageous" disparity b/w "grand mandarins" developing policy and "below the salt" officials delivering it. No "parity of esteem"
So mandarins overpowered but disconnected from effect of policy 4/
(On grand mandarins, she's "very pleased" to see greater churn among permanent secretaries, thanks to fixed-term contracts introduced under coalition.
It's "part of the accountability of the official to the minister" took a swipe at the papers overreacting to recent events) 5/
Finn and Agnew believe there's an under-utilised weapon in the war to improve Whitehall— letters of ministerial direction
This is where a minister formally tells their dept to proceed with a spending proposal, despite an objection from their permanent secretary 6/
Finn says this has often been seen as a "nuclear option", must it be used more
The effect will be twofold: leave officials in no doubt about govt priorities
And it will raise pressure of ministers: "it puts accountability fairly and squarely where it should be" 7/
In other words, on the minister's head be it.
But the quid pro quo is no officials smiling politely as ministers give orders that they then ignore
Finn said: "I think it's a very clear, sensible way of doing things"
8/
Surprisingly, Agnew and Finn were clear that ministers also need to up their game
Agnew: They need to get far better training "so they have the confidence to take these decisions".
Finn: Ministerial induction and training is "absolutely critical"
9/
Agnew suggested civil servants must never be allowed to bamboozle ministers with superior expertise on complex areas
If ministers become more literate in their policy remit and in delivery, they can challenge status-quo bias and resistance from officials
10/
Agnew also said training for officials will become more rigorous and dynamic too
But ATM he can't understand where hundreds of millions are supposedly going on existing courses
"I can't get it all on a page...It's been a labyrinth to get our hands around the whole ..." 11/
training landscape that is just so convoluted, but by flook some major contracts on trainug are up at the moment".
Expect training to be farmed out beyond the Big Four
In the meantime, he is going to produce a central library of all training resources 12/
Zooming out, a lot of what Agnew and Finn said was surprisingly uncontroversial
Even David Lidington - that great icon of Vote Leave etc - agreed that "Whitehall does need to be less introverted and more willing to let ministers be personally exposed to outside opinions" 13/
And Dame Hodgson said we need a smaller, smarter and more skilled civil service.
The question, then, is how radical and effective the government is actually going to be in dispersing London-based senior civil service, reinforcing accountability and improving expertise 14/
More on this in tomorrow's ST, including the revelation that Treasury is likely to locate Treasury campus in Darlington - near Teesside Intl Airport and Rishi's seat to boot
And officials have examined plans to move DCMS to Manchester/Leeds and MHCLG to the Midlands. 15/
OH. And you can stream the convo here:
ends
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EXCLUSIVE 🚨 The Sunday Times has obtained "black box" data from a tracking device inside the Mercedes rental car used by Akbar Shamji — a suspect in the case of teenager Zac Brettler's death.
We have used its GPS data to create minute-by-minute reconstruction of his movements on the night.
It shatters his story and shows he lied to police repeatedly during their investigation.
Met had the data, but failed to analyse it in depth, so never confronted him about inconsistencies, such as his claim he was at home during fatal fall:
Former bankrupt crypto investor Shamji and gangster Dave Sharma were the last people to see Brettler alive.
They confronted him about money they felt he owed them before he jumped off a 5th floor flat opposite MI6 headquarters.
A coroner delivered an "open verdict" meaning his death was suspicious but its cause unknown.
Before and after his death, Shamji was driving a rental vehicle fitted with a state-of-the-art tracking device, whose data we have analysed over several months.
He told police he went home hours before Brettler's fatal jump at 2.24am. In fact, he was in the same building. He had returned after taking call from Sharma and suddenly speeding back at 80 km/h. He went upstairs and remained alone with Sharma for 11 minutes.
Data shows other striking details such as detour over Vauxhall Bridge just after he had gone down to the river by foot and "looked for Zac" in the water.
Here's a vintage example of FOI vandalism I've been dealing with.
The department: David Cameron’s Foreign Office.
The subject: David Cameron’s lobbying career.
🧵
In January 2023, Cameron visited Sri Lanka.
While there, he met the president twice. Once at his residence. Another time at lunch with the British ambassador.
Within months, he was being paid to drum up investment for Port City Colombo, a highly controversial Chinese infrastructure project.
It is part of President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative. Critics believe it could become a military base.
In November 2023, shortly after Cameron’s appointment as foreign secretary, I asked the Foreign Office for copies of:
1) any notes or memos about the former PM’s trip to Sri Lanka 2) any correspondence with his team beforehand
I specifically asked for any emails from/to Laurence Mann, Cameron’s long-term adviser who was involved in the Greensill scandal and who now works for the Foreign Office.
Under law, I was supposed to get a response within 20 working days. In other words, by 21 December.
I was privileged to know Zac Brettler when he was a little boy.
Following @praddenkeefe's investigation into his death, I spoke to his extraordinary parents.
Today, they give The Sunday Times previously unpublished evidence about the night their 19-year-old jumped from a balcony after a confrontation with a gangster.
It poses huge questions of the Metropolitan Police. Like crime-scene photos of the blood-like smears detectives somehow did not swab or test... (1/6)
The king's cousin fixed a private jet and luxury safari holiday for Oleg Deripaska while he was sanctioned by the US
Lexi Bowes-Lyon - NY-based Brit at US charity - did so in 2021, years after Putin ally sanctioned by America thetimes.co.uk/article/royal-…
Her employer, UK and US registered charity Space for Giants, says: “We are not in a position to confirm or deny that Space for Giants has or has not breached US sanctions in relation to the 2021 safari given that no competent authority has ever ruled on this."
The charity was questioned as part of a DOJ/FBI investigation into Deripaska sanctions violations
It says it cooperated as “witness"
It will not say if it disclosed involvement of US team in Deripaska holiday
US persons face 30 years in prison for dealing with sanction people.
A post-script on David Warburton, the disgraced Tory MP who has quit after being accused of sexual assault or harassment by three women
(He also took cocaine and a secret £100k loan from a Russian he lobbied for)
On Sunday, he did a sit down interview in the Mail on Sunday. 1/
In it, he presented himself as a victim - and lashed out at the woman who accused him of assault. He was, he said, the victim of a set up. A sinister plot.
The outgoing MP said his accuser spoke fluent Russian - inflaming his fears of "Russian infiltration".
2/
The suggestion of Russian influence is not new.
Last year, in fact, hours after we published the story, the MoS splashed its own extraordinary "exclusive".
Namely, our story with the added claim that a "Foreign Communist Party" (!!??) may have released the material. 3/