{"id":13505,"date":"2026-01-18T18:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T18:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13505"},"modified":"2026-01-18T18:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T18:18:10","slug":"uk-to-create-new-school-of-government-to-train-senior-civil-servants-civil-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13505","title":{"rendered":"UK to create new \u2018school of government\u2019 to train senior civil servants | Civil service"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ministers will bring in a new \u201cschool of government\u201d for senior civil servants to train them in AI and other skills \u2013 more than a decade after David Cameron axed the previous college for Whitehall.<\/p>\n
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, will announce the new body in a speech on Tuesday setting out the government\u2019s plans to \u201crewire\u201d the civil service for modern times.<\/p>\n
Cameron\u2019s decision to close the previous national school of government at Sunningdale has been widely considered a mistake, with growing fees for external providers.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the speech, Jones said he was determined to \u201cwork with the civil service to change the system, promote innovation and build in-house state capacity to get things done \u201d.<\/p>\n
Aimed at improving the training of senior civil servants, its programme will include knowledge on economics, finance, policy, leadership and management, commercial, AI, data and digital, programme and project management and delivery.<\/p>\n
The school will launch later this year, building to full capacity over the next three years.<\/p>\n
Jones said that by \u201cbringing in-house, high-quality training and education for public servants, the School for Government and Public Services will help support our ambitions for a world-class professional civil service\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am also determined to support civil servants with training as the use of AI is expanded in the public sector in the years ahead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to work with the civil service to change the system, promote innovation and build in-house state capacity to get things done.\u201d<\/p>\n
His speech, due on Tuesday with a promise to \u201cmove fast, fix things\u201d, will build on existing plans to halve government spending on external consultants and reduce departmental administration costs by 16% over the next five years, delivering savings of \u00a32bn a year by 2030. In an interview with the Times last week, Jones also suggested he would increase performance-related pay and more civil servants would be \u201cshown the door\u201d if not meetings standards.<\/p>\n
The original vehicle for Whitehall training was for decades the civil service college, which was axed in 1995 by then Cabinet Office minister, Stephen Dorrell, deciding it was unfit for purpose and would have to close. Its successor, the National School of Government, was shuttered under Cameron and his efficiency chief Francis Maude, in an era when civil servants were called the \u201cenemies of enterprise\u201d. It was replaced by a national civil service learning programme which lacked its own campus.<\/p>\n
Keir Starmer\u2019s government has embarked on its own efficiency drive, with the prime minister controversially saying too many in Whitehall were content with a \u201ctepid bath of managed decline\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n