Integrity Talking Points

 

The Guardian has published leaked details of the UK Cabinet Office’s Reward, Efficiency and Reform Group (Rerg) recommendations. These propose that Civil Service pay will be based on four regions with salaries between 7% – 10% lower than UK average pay. Not surprisingly, relationships with the Government which have been drifting apart, may soon be on the rocks.

 

The Cabinet Secretary for the last six months, who was responsible for Rerg and cutting costs across departments, resigned last week after falling out with the Cabinet Minister.

 

And the Head of the Civil Service is reported to have had a spectacular dispute with the Prime Minister’s strategy director over the perceived failure of the Civil Service to implement radical change. The strategy director resigned having “lost” a debate that 90% of the work done by civil servants could be outsourced to think tanks, charities and private companies.

 

The Head of the Civil Service tweeted on Saturday that “ I am a champion of change in the Civil Service but I will also defend what is good about it. We need to hang on to [Civil Service] values – integrity, honesty, objectivity, impartiality.”

 

Will the ship of state hit the rocks?

 

For the imaginative, there has been an analogy in Australia over the weekend. A 26,000 tonne bulk carrier MV Integrity, drifting without power, threated to hit the Great Barrier Reef. However the crew “managed” ballast, enabling the ship to float over Shark Reef and into clear water. It is now being towed to port.

 

Integrity is no longer at risk of being driven onto the rocks and breaking up!