DfT Permanent Secretary to step down

[anothertyke]

The Civil Service should not be allowed tp "set policy". Its task should be to advise ministers, and then to implement government policy quickly, efficiently and without delay. And the first to go should be those at the top responsible for things like late, overpriced defence contracts, failed national IT schemes for NHS, etc., etc.

So if a Minister says ' I am thinking that we may need to introduce a new form of road user charging' or ' we are going to need a game plan to work through the implications of Heathrow 3 and Gatwick 2 together', or 'I want you to work out how GBR interfaces with DfT' who do you think is going to do that work? There is a massive grey area between policy formation and delivery.

As I see it there are two issues. The first is what the effect will be on top level capability. The second is that given the shape of the Christmas tree organisation, in practice there is no way of making cuts of that scale without cutting the front line. Expect service levels at the DVLA, Passport Office etc to change.

 

[infobleep]

They previously discovered that one person can't cover everything in DfT so they probably won't repeat that mistake.

One large area of head count reduction would be forcing though more DOO. DfT direct headcount is fairly small compared to DfT's overall spend.

When did they discover this regarding the DfT? It may have been long enough for them to now have forgotten this was the case.

As for DOO, the TOCs are private companies and does this government want a repeat of the preivous strikes?