Keir Starmer wants to "rewire" Whitehall, which he has claimed is too "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline"

How many civil servants are there?
As of December 2024, there were 548,000 civil servants in the UK, or 514,000 full-time equivalent employees. About six million, or 18% of the UK's 34 million workers, work for the public sector, but only 1.6% of the British workforce are civil servants; most public sector workers are employed by councils, NHS trusts, police forces and so on. (Prison officers, being employed by the Ministry of Justice, are civil servants; police are not.) But what people largely mean by the civil service is the officials who staff the machinery of central government: the UK's 24 ministerial departments – known collectively as Whitehall – its 20 non-ministerial departments (such as HM Revenue and Customs or HM Land Registry), and some 305 "arm's-length bodies" (from the Environment Agency to the Care Quality Commission).

How was the civil service created?
The modern civil service is usually dated back to the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854. Finding a Whitehall system staffed by men of "slender ability" selected mostly by patronage, its authors recommended the creation of a small elite corps of administrators chosen by open examination: "an efficient body of permanent officers… possessing sufficient independence, character, ability and experience to be able to advise, assist, and to some extent influence" government ministers. Their recommendations were implemented in 1870, and they created a system that endured for generations and was much admired, at home and abroad, for its high standards of integrity, professionalism, honesty and political neutrality. It was often likened to a Rolls-Royce; one US journalist called it "the incorruptible spinal column of England".

What's the problem now?
Successive governments, from Tony Blair's to Boris Johnson's to Starmer's, have been frustrated by shortcomings in Whitehall's ability to deliver their chosen policies, to respond to crises and threats, and even to provide basic services. A few well-known examples of dysfunction might include the failure of the Covid test-and-trace programme; the Ministry of Defence's very poor record on arms procurement; the attempt to create a national electronic record system for the NHS, cancelled in 2011 at a cost of more than £10 billion; and the long-running series of problems at the Home Office, from the wrongful release of foreign offenders to the Windrush scandal. Beyond that, ministers of all political stripes have complained that when they pull the levers of government, little happens. Blair said the civil service was like "a shiny Rolls-Royce parked outside the door of Downing Street", which he was "not allowed to drive".

Why has this happened?
According to Francis Maude, David Cameron's Cabinet Office minister, who published a review in 2023, there is a remarkable consistency in the criticisms made, all the way from the Fulton Report of 1968 to those made by Dominic Cummings and Michael Gove under Johnson. These include: shortages of technical skills, particularly in data and science, and of commercial experience; a high staff "churn" as civil servants are moved from job to job; an aversion to risk and innovation; an over-reliance on process; poor staff management, with few rewards for success and few penalties for failure; and, as a result, a gulf between policy and implementation. These issues are often said to be rooted in civil service culture.

What's wrong with the culture?
Critics say there is an excessive reliance on "generalists" recruited into the "fast stream", often Oxbridge-educated humanities graduates with drafting and "courtier skills", who dominate the top cadre (once satirised in the form of Sir Humphrey in "Yes Minister", more recently dubbed "the Blob" by Gove). They are, it is said, culturally homogenous, with shared metropolitan liberal attitudes, and often resistant to policy change – particularly if it comes from the Eurosceptic political right. According to Maude, there is a damaging "disparity of esteem" between the officials who formulate policy, who occupy most of the highest grades, and those charged with implementation and with technical expertise. This, he suggests, may explain the poor record on delivery.

Are these criticisms fair?
It's worth noting that they are made largely by politicians, while civil servants are constrained from speaking publicly. And the latter are often "blamed for policy failures by the ministers they serve", says the former cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell. The tasks the civil service performs are intrinsically complex, and policies shift not just when governments change, but frequently from week to week; "churn" among ministers is far worse than among civil servants. Constant criticism lowers morale, too: in the latest civil service survey, only 35% said they wanted to stay in their organisation for the next three years. Pay, meanwhile, is not high. The permanent secretary to the Treasury, its top civil servant, earns £160,000; a FTSE 100 CEO earns around 25 times that. In technical areas – in pensions or IT, say – the disparity is particularly acute, which accounts for skills shortages.

What is this government doing?
Like every government in recent history, Keir Starmer's is pushing for improved "delivery"; for better technical and digital skills; and for performance-related pay for senior civil servants, with possible dismissal for under-performers. It wants to move more civil servants out of London, relocating 12,000 jobs to, among other cities, Manchester, Cardiff, Birmingham and Aberdeen (this is a recurring theme of reform efforts since the 1980s). And a review of arm's-length bodies is under way to bring more services under direct ministerial control (the world's largest quango, NHS England, has already been abolished). Starmer has promised "a renewed civil service; more agile, mission-focused and more productive".

Bureaucracy and its critics
Bureaucracy is as old as civilisation; the two are, in fact, inextricably intertwined. The earliest known forms of writing come from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, detailing administrative functions such as tax collection. When Northcote and Trevelyan were making their recommendations in the mid-19th century, they were inspired by the examination system for the Chinese imperial civil service. The criticisms go a long way back, too. In the 18th century, the term bureaucracy – rule by desk – was coined by a French economist, Vincent de Gournay, who saw it as an "illness".

In 1904, the German sociologist Max Weber concluded that it was the most efficient and rational way of organising social units, but also saw that it can trap humans in an "iron cage" of rule-based control (a prediction realised by the efficiency of Nazi bureaucracy). Analysts have often noted that, with a permanent civil service, there is an intrinsic tension between state officials and elected politicians. And critics point out that public servants have an innate tendency to build empires. The full version of Parkinson's Law, coined by the historian C. Northcote Parkinson in 1955, holds that the number of workers within public administration tends to grow, regardless of the amount of work to be done.

"The Israeli government needs to pay attention to the growing horror among its friends about its actions in Gaza," said The Times. The vehement joint statement by the UK, France and Canada on Monday described the level of suffering in Gaza as "intolerable", and called for an end to military action. And "there may be more to come": President Trump is said to be "genuinely dismayed by the suffering of Gazans", and losing patience with Benjamin Netanyahu over his failure to end the war.

The UK is right to finally get tough with Israel, said The Independent. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have now died in this conflict; Unicef has warned that 70,500 children are threatened with acute malnutrition.

Hamas will have been delighted by the interventions of Israel's allies, said The Jerusalem Post: criticism of Israel distracts attention from its own responsibility for the suffering in Gaza, and from the fact that it could end this war by laying down its arms and releasing the hostages. Hamas has betrayed its own people, agreed The Wall Street Journal. It has routinely seized aid sent to the Strip and sold it at inflated prices – a practice it will seek to resume now that Israel is easing its blockade.

Israel's renewed offensive in Gaza, where conditions were already desperate, has provoked "widespread anger and revulsion", and after 19 months of brutal war, the patience of some of Israel's Western allies seems to be finally "running out", said Ishaan Tharoor in The Washington Post. The EU has announced that it is beginning a "formal review of its trade accord with Israel". Britain has levied sanctions on figures linked to Israel's "pro-settler far-right" and, with France and Canada, has warned Israel that it could face further sanctions if more aid isn't allowed into Gaza.

Even America's patience may be wearing thin, said Samer Al-Atrush in The Times. Donald Trump bypassed Israel during his recent tour of the Middle East, and Israeli media is replete with claims that he is "reaching a breaking point with Netanyahu".

Israel's PM could repair relations with Washington by negotiating the ceasefire that Trump so badly wants, said The Economist. Doing so, however, would infuriate his far-right allies – some of whom were incensed even by his decision to let minimal aid into Gaza – and there is little sign that he plans to break with them now. Israeli troops are "poised to capture new swathes of territory in the Strip", and the IDF has warned Gazans to leave Khan Younis, a key city in the south, ahead of an "unprecedented attack". "The humanitarian cost is likely to be staggering."

Israel believes there is no viable alternative, said Jonathan Sacerdoti in The Spectator. The eight-week truce that began in January left Hamas' leadership intact and failed to secure the release of all the hostages. There's no reason to believe a ceasefire now would have a different outcome.

On the contrary, Israel's interests would be best served by putting a halt to this carnage, said Matthew Syed in The Sunday Times. The atrocities of 7 October were "designed to provoke an overreaction": with each bomb blast, each picture of weeping children, Hamas secures another propaganda victory. By continuing to wage war on Gaza even as disease spreads and children starve, Israel is losing its moral standing and risking "unprecedented global isolation".

When Mishal Husain left Radio 4's "Today" programme in December, it was roundly agreed that her departure was a profound loss for British broadcasting, says Nosheen Iqbal in Vogue. For many, her style – sober, formal, inscrutable – stood in sharp contrast with the "more matey, ego-first style" of "Today"'s newer presenters, Emma Barnett and Amol Rajan. She won't be drawn on whether their arrival played a role in her decision to leave, hinting only that there was a shift in approach that did not sit well with her. "What was true to me was that I would very rarely use the word 'I', actually, on air." She lets slip a chuckle. "I would quite often say, 'We've talked to so and so,' because [in broadcasting] you're always part of a team."

The BBC having failed to find her a suitable role, she has moved to Bloomberg, to host an interview show. She is, she says, apprehensive but also excited by the prospect of this new chapter. That said, after a year in which – as a prominent British Muslim – she had experienced an unprecedented level of racism, she was deeply touched by the reaction to her departure from the BBC. "Most BBC presenters… if you're in the headlines, it's not usually for a good reason," she says. "And when I felt this affection, and I saw that my work had a value to people, it really was massive." She will, she says, "carry that with me and… take courage from it".