Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell has announced a further five government departments will be undertaking Capability Reviews.
These are the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Ministry of Defence, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development.
The reviews will consider capability in the Civil Service in three key areas: leadership, strategy and delivery.
Each review aims to identify where departments need to improve and will include key actions which will address these areas. The programme will be rolled out across 17 departments by summer 2007.
O’Donnell said: “We are well underway with the Capability Review programme now. Twelve departments have been or are presently undergoing reviews, showing how we remain on track with our determination to develop a world class Civil Service for the 21st century.”
The review teams have been drawn from the private sector, the wider public sector and board-level members of other government departments.
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The findings for the five departments will be published in spring 2007.
Last month the government published reviews of the Home Office, the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills. They found that poor people management and inadequate HR provision are at the heart of failings in Whitehall.
