subject: Senior civil servant to seek advice of business consultants [print this page] Senior civil servant to seek advice of business consultants
Many organisations benefit from the help of business consultants. Such sources of advice and insight can help in a number of ways.
This may be particularly useful at present given the difficult nature of the economic climate in Britain.
Indeed, in its spending review announced this autumn, the coalition government unveiled a series of austerity measures that are likely to cause further uncertainty.
Among those to be most affected are workers in the public sector and one manager in this field has reportedly begun seeking the assistance of business consultants.
A report in the Independent suggests that Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell, who is the UK's most senior civil servant, is aiming to learn from private companies how to reduce the number of personal employed without cutting services and important functions.
Among those thought to have been contacted for informal advice is Sir Roy Gardner, former chief executive of Centrica.
In his role, he oversaw a major restructuring of the firm which led to more than 1,000 job losses.
Meanwhile, Anthony Habgood, chairman of the publishing group Reed Elsevier, is also thought to be involved.
Of course, organisations can also strike more formal agreements when seeking to enhance management development.
Recently, Sir Gus gave evidence to the House of Commons Public Administration Committee.
He said: "I have asked key members of the private sector who have done this successfully to come and talk to the set of permanent secretaries to give them advice."
In addition, he remarked: "It may be at times we are using our redundancy schemes to take out rather more [staff] and then come in with people whose skills we need for the future.
"My responsibility is to ensure this [redundancy programme] is done in a way which makes the civil service stronger."
He is by no means alone is his desire to engage in management development in this way, with many businesses eager to make themselves stronger and better.
