This report brings together a wealth of information on Whitehall's performance to create an overview of the state of the UK civil service. It identifies high-performing organisations within the civil service and internationally to encourage further learning and improvement in government:

1. Whitehall in global context: the UK is among the world's highest performing governments. The civil service has a relatively positive public image. However, Whitehall is consistently outperformed in international comparisons by a cluster of Scandinavian and Commonwealth countries.


2. Performance: Whitehall's performance record is patchy. Capability reviews show improvement in almost every area measured, but many of the 2005-08 round of Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets were not met, in part because some targets were poorly conceived in the first place. PSAs that were shared between departments were less frequently achieved. The civil service appears to have delivered significant efficiency savings as part of the Gershonprocess, but poor data quality means some savings are open to question.


3. Leadership and people: civil servants display high levels of pride and commitment, but many lack confidence in their department's senior leadership. Civil service culture appears to be relatively conservative, which may limit the potential for innovation. Recruitment of senior officials from outside Whitehall is growing, with uncertain implications.


4. The role of the centre: within Whitehall, the UK operates a relatively decentralised model of government, with departments enjoying high levels of autonomy when compared to the rest of the OECD. This may contribute to silo working within central government, making collaboration and cross-departmental innovation more difficult.