In a move to modernize the civil service, the UK government has announced the creation of a new “School of Government” to provide advanced training for senior civil servants. This comes more than a decade after the controversial decision by former Prime Minister David Cameron to shut down the previous national school of government at Sunningdale.
Darren Jones, the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, will unveil the new institution in a speech on Tuesday. The school’s curriculum will focus on equipping civil servants with skills in areas such as economics, finance, policy, leadership, management, artificial intelligence, data, and digital transformation.
The closure of the Sunningdale school under Cameron’s tenure has been widely regarded as a misstep, leading to a growing reliance on external training providers. Jones emphasized the government’s determination to “work with the civil service to change the system, promote innovation and build in-house state capacity to get things done.”
The new School for Government and Public Service aims to provide high-quality, in-house training and education for public servants, supporting the government’s ambition for a world-class professional civil service. Jones also stressed the importance of preparing civil servants for the expanding use of AI in the public sector.
The announcement comes as part of the government’s broader efficiency drive, which includes plans to halve spending on external consultants and reduce departmental administrative costs by 16% over the next five years, delivering savings of £2 billion annually by 2030.
The move to revive a dedicated training institution for senior civil servants reflects the government’s recognition of the need to invest in the skills and capabilities of the Whitehall bureaucracy. This follows recent criticisms from the Prime Minister, who has suggested that too many in the civil service are content with a “tepid bath of managed decline.”
The new school’s launch later this year, with a phased rollout over the next three years, is seen as a crucial step in equipping the civil service with the necessary tools to navigate the challenges of modern governance and deliver on the government’s ambitious reform agenda.