Government to create school to train senior civil servants in AI and other skills

Ministers will create a new "school of government" to train senior civil servants in AI and other skills, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, will announce in a speech on Tuesday — more than a decade after David Cameron closed the previous college for Whitehall.

The programme is aimed at improving training for senior officials and will include economics, finance, policy, leadership and management, commercial work, AI, data and digital, and programme and project management and delivery. Jones said the body would "bring in-house, high-quality training and education for public servants" and help support ambitions for a "world-class professional civil service." He added he was "determined to support civil servants with training as the use of AI is expanded in the public sector." The school will launch later this year and build to full capacity over the next three years.

Jones said his speech would set out plans to "rewire" the civil service for modern times and to "move fast, fix things," building on existing plans to halve spending on external consultants and reduce departmental administration costs by 16% over the next five years, delivering savings of 2bn a year by 2030.

In an interview with the Times last week, Jones also suggested he would increase performance-related pay and that more civil servants would be "shown the door" if they did not meet standards.

Key Topics

Politics, Darren Jones, Civil Service, Whitehall, Artificial Intelligence