A Modern Civil Service is our vision of a skilled, innovative and ambitious Civil Service equipped for the future. Over the last two years we’ve made good progress on this, but there’s still more to do. So we’ve set out our next steps with a refreshed reform approach, using lessons from what we’ve learnt so far to help us achieve greater change.
How we started
In June 2021 we published the Declaration on Government Reform which detailed an ambitious programme of modernisation and reform, developed and co-owned by ministers and civil servants.
Since then we’ve made a number of changes to how we work, including:
- Growing our presence across the UK, relocating more than 12,000 roles outside of London. Our new campuses, such as the Darlington Economic Campus, are creating new career pathways for civil servants outside of the South East.
- Streamlining and improving learning and development through a new campus and curriculum to improve skills for all civil servants.
- Investing significantly in our digital and data capability. £8 billion for digital, data and technology transformation by 2025 will mean inefficient legacy systems can be replaced, delivering better services and greater value for the public.
- New departments, such as the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology have been established to deliver on the biggest issues facing the country.
- We also have 275 more accredited project delivery professionals in government since qualifications were introduced in 2022, and we have improved our oversight and management of major projects.
The Civil Service is committed to continuing to improve how it works across government to serve the public more effectively. Two years on from the Declaration on Government Reform it’s important we reflect on what we’ve learnt so far. We want to deliver better services for all, ones that are more trusted, more personalised and more responsive.
Our next steps
Building on the actions from the Declaration we’re now focusing on five key missions for reform. These are areas where we can work together to unlock improvements across the Civil Service.
Our five missions cover:
- Capability: able to adapt to the needs of the public we serve.
- Place: representative of the communities we serve and provides a thriving presence across the country.
- Delivery: collaborative, routinely working across organisational barriers, with a culture of excellence in service delivery.
- Digital and data: able to harness the power of digital and data to make better decisions, improve service delivery and enhance user experience.
- Innovation: rewards and encourages our people to find innovative solutions to problems, so we can deliver better outcomes for the public.
Focusing on these five missions will help us keep evolving how we work to improve the ways in which we deliver for the public.
A modern Civil Service
These five missions will help us to remain a modern Civil Service, one that is skilled, innovative and ambitious in delivering the agenda of government and meeting the needs of the public. Each department will set out how it’s taking forward these missions and what this means for their people, as well as how they can contribute and take part. Our work affects every single person in the UK at some point in their life, and this wouldn't be possible without a Civil Service enriched through a diversity of roles, people and ideas that reflect the society we serve.
You can find more information about how we are building A Modern Civil Service at our GOV.UK site.
3 comments
Comment by Joy Stark posted on
Is this mandatory?
Comment by Francesc Folguera Ylla posted on
In a fast-changing World, the Civil Service must constantly adapt to deliver expected outcomes and to maximise outputs within the resources available.
Cooperation across different departments may enhance those outputs.
Comment by OLUBUNMI EHINMOWO posted on
Cooperation and collaboration increases awareness and better understanding of departmental visions and missions, it will create a more inclusive Civil Service and remove potential barrier to diversity equity, inclusion within CS