In October 2005, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell announced to the Public Administration Select Committee that he would work with permanent secretary colleagues to develop Capability Reviews that would both assess how well equipped departments are to meet their delivery challenges and provide targeted support to make any improvements required.
The resulting Capability Reviews programme is run for the Cabinet Secretary by the Capability Reviews Team in the Cabinet Office though the 2011-12 Capability Action Plans are owned and written by departments. The programme has targeted underlying capability issues such as:
- departments having the right strategic and leadership capabilities
- how well departments are performing, and do they have the tools to fix their problems when they underachieve
- staff having the right skills to meet both current and future challenges
- engaging effectively with their key stakeholders, partners and the public.
The reviews are conducted using a model of capability developed originally by the Capability Reviews Team through consultation with senior leaders in the Civil Service in 2006. In 2009 the model was refreshed to reflect the environment in which departments were delivering policies. A small working group and a larger consultation group, consisting of a wide range of stakeholders from central government departments, local government, the private and voluntary sector as well as academia, considered ways to strengthen the model for the future.
Phase 1 of reviews took place in 2006-07 and Phase 2 reviews were carried out in 2008-09.