The Department for Business and Trade – soon to be the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade – is hiring an industrial policy chief without a requirement to be knowledgeable about the economy or industrial policy. Whitehall hiring 101…
The new hire will lead on policy for the Industrial Strategy Advisory Council Secretariat and “deliver robust advice to the Government following the publication of the Industrial Strategy; specifically supporting the ISAC members to deliver bespoke policy projects, give evidence-based recommendations to Government and engage extensively with relevant stakeholders, ensuring that the ISAC’s time and expertise is used to maximum effect to maximise impact and delivery of Industrial Strategy objectives.” For a handsome £64,708…
It is “essential” that the policy lead can brief, communicate and is “comfortable working with agility in a context of change and transition.” Knowledge of the policy, however, is further down the list:
“The below criteria are desirable only. These will not be assessed throughout the recruitment process, but will be used in the event of tied scores between candidates;
An understanding of the drivers of economic policy and/or some familiarity with industrial policy would be desirable but not essential. ”
This prioritisation happens worryingly often. Applies to Andy Burnham’s new job too: “Winning a national election or leadership contest of any type is desirable but not essential”…
After Guido revealed that a zany Civil Service unit was trying to train government staff through clay modelling, it may be shut down. Quick turnaround…
The Telegraph followed Guido’s story yesterday and found additionally that the Policy Lab did an outreach programme on popular game Grand Theft Auto V. A “Whitehall source” told the paper that the unit, established in 2014 under Cameron, should be shut down: “This sort of nonsense is exactly the kind of Tory hangover this Government wants to root out… ministers did not sign off these projects and don’t want to see taxpayers’ money wasted on video games when there are bigger problems the public care about.” Punchy…
Another government source said: “This is a decades old Tory initiative that we are now looking into.” Policy Lab used to sit in the Cabinet Office until it moved to the Department for Education in 2020. It was founded with a few hundred thousand pounds in running costs in order to “provide an experimental environment for testing and evaluating new ways to make policy.” Which has since evolved into playing with clay…
Guido thought he would check in on how Darren Jones’ new Civil Service school is going. Civil servants are being trained on clay modelling…
A report published this month by the Cabinet Office and the government agency Policy Lab details a programme “to explore how civil servants navigate Learning & Development across their current roles and wider career journeys, aiming to ensure that the skills system is grounded in lived experience and co-designed with those it serves.” Whatever that means…
To provide feedback on their experience in government last year civil servants tried “sensory ethnography… rooted in the principles of both sensory and participatory ethnography, which allowed us to elicit deeper responses and experiences which are often not volunteered in interviews or similar research approaches.” They played with clay models…
Policy Lab boasted about designing “creative, self-guided exercises.”
“The exercises were tactile, varied and experimental, inspired by a wide set of references from ancient Andean knotting and record keeping practices (khipu) to British popular culture (my career radio), and clay modelling.”
The rest of the report is full of meaningless jargon. Policy Lab said it “translated insights” into “speculative proposals” for learning in the civil Service and its project “informed the creation of the National School of Government and Public Services, announced by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister in 2026, and offers a model for how government can move from lived experience to system‑level insight, and from insight to delivery.” Darren Jones is moulding the Civil Servants, it gets him fired up, co-conspirators can put their own clay puns below…
An invite has gone to staff at the Care Quality Commission, which is responsible for regulating all health and social care services in England:
“When: Thursday, June 4, 2026, 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM (UTC) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
Where: Room 1B, 2 Redman Place, Stratford Office and by MS Teams
Category: LGBT+
About this event:
Our quarterly members meeting takes place in person and via MS Teams. To receive an invitation please join the LGBT+ Network at the link above.”
Also coming up on Thursday 4th June from at 2 p.m. is a one hour Microsoft Teams meeting: “The LGBT+ Network are delighted to welcome Tina Wathern, Head of Education at the LGBT Foundation, for a discussion on Pride in Practice.” The LGBT Foundation is a Manchester-based charity which produces such work as a guide on gaining asylum in the UK…
A report last year found seven in ten community social care services either have no CQC rating or one that’s out of date. Wonder why…
While ministers battle backbenchers over a £6 billion black hole in SEND funding, at least the pen-pushers at the Department for Education aren’t being asked to rough it. New figures show that in the year 2024-25, education civil servants clocked up 8,367 hotel nights – roughly one overnight stay for every member of staff. To do what…
The department’s own guidance caps hotel stays at £160 a night in London and £110 elsewhere. A bit of back-of-a-fag-packet maths suggests that could add up to as much as £920,370. Perhaps the mandarins should be given a lesson in frugality…
The Department for Work and Pensions is burning through £1,121,565 in annual salary costs for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staff. Maybe some of those “10,000 job cuts” in the blob Starmer promised could start here…
The DWP diversity team is made up of:
That’s 14.16 full-time equivalent staff solely focused on DEI. Pensions minister Andrew Western claims:
“Dedicated EDI staff help DWP comply with equality legislation, making sure that vulnerable customers are supported. Proactive EDI initiatives can help prevent issues related to discrimination or exclusion, reducing grievances and costly disputes.”
Meanwhile, Starmer has ruled out reforming Britain’s ballooning benefits bill for at least a year, terrified of another backbench rebellion. Go woke, go broke…
Burnham said in his main conference speech: “For the historic victory he achieved for us, I am here to say: thank you, Keir.”