Current British Government Publishing

Although it is seldom recognised as such by the public, the civil service is a profession like any other. The UK civil service employs 400,000 people across the country, with over 20,000 students and graduates applying to enter every year through its fast-stream competition alone. Martin Stanley's seminal How to Be a Civil Servant was the first guidebook to the British civil service ever published. It remains the only comprehensive guide on how civil servants should effectively carry out their duties, hone their communication skills and respond to professional, ethical and technical issues relevant to the job. It addresses such questions as: How do you establish yourself with your minister as a trusted adviser? How should you feed the media so they don’t feed on you? What’s the best way to deal with potential conflicts of interest? This fully updated new edition provides the latest advice, and is a must-read for newly appointed civil servants and for those looking to enter the profession – not to mention students, academics, journalists, politicians and anyone with an interest in the inner workings of the British government.

This new edition incorporates revised guidance from H.M Treasury which is designed to promote efficient policy development and resource allocation across government through the use of a thorough, long-term and analytically robust approach to the appraisal and evaluation of public service projects before significant funds are committed. It is the first edition to have been aided by a consultation process in order to ensure the guidance is clearer and more closely tailored to suit the needs of users.

Over Britain’s first century of mass democracy, politics has lurched from crisis to crisis. How does this history of political agony illuminate our current age of upheaval? To find out, journalist Phil Tinline takes us back to two past eras when the ruling consensus broke down, and the future filled with ominous possibilities – until, finally, a new settlement was born. How did the Great Depression’s spectres of fascism, bombing and mass unemployment force politicians to think the unthinkable, and pave the way to post-war Britain? How was Thatcher’s road to victory made possible by a decade of nightmares: of hyperinflation, military coups and communist dictatorship? And why, since the Crash in 2008, have new political threats and divisions forced us to change course once again? Tinline brings to life those times, past and present, when the great compromise holding democracy together has come apart; when the political class has been forced to make a choice of nightmares. This lively, original account of panic and chaos reveals how apparent catastrophes can clear the path to a new era. The Death of Consensus will make you see British democracy differently.

This White Paper sets out clearly how the UK will continue to unlock and seize the benefits of data sharing in the future in a responsible way. Firstly by ensuring equality in access to data; secondly in building greater trust in public data; and thirdly by ensuring that public services are more personalised and efficient by being smarter with the data public bodies hold. The UK is currently co-chairing the Open Government Partnership of 55 governments whose theme is 'Transparency drives prosperity' with the belief that opening up data will empower citizens, foster innovation and reform public services. It is also, therefore, about how others participate. About businesses and organisations becoming more transparent themselves and pushing data into the public domain and individuals taking that data and using it to make better decisions or press for different types of services.