Self inflicted chaos!
Pros
All the right things happen in terms of efforts to make it a good place to work. There are some good initiatives for staff.
Cons
Pace is leisurely at best. There is no proper advice to ministers which causes a lot of problems. The focus isn’t on best practice in policy making, including evidence based. Rather on how to give life to ministerial whim which ministers might not choose if they were properly advised. I have worked in several Govt Depts. This one is pure, self-inflicted chaos. Instead of giving ministers balanced advice to help them to make informed decisions, ministers are simply asked what they want. There is no advice in response, officials simply rush to implement that, no matter how ill-advised. As a result, ministers are embarrassed and a vicious cycle of fire fighting begins, particularly in the few controversial/toxic topic areas. The main problem is at Deputy Director/SCS1 level - there are some major weaknesses there which are not seen or understood by those more senior. The Dept has a lot of arms length bodies with expertise but tends to ignore them and do its own thing. I was told not to involve experts from one of those bodies because they might advise a different course of action to that coming from ministers.
