•    A Defence Reform Unit has been created to reorganise the Ministry of Defence into three pillars: policy and strategy; the Armed Forces; and procurement and estates. The unit, chaired by former MoD procurement chief Lord Levene, will aim to create a decentralised, rationalised management structure and will challenge the numbers of senior civil servants and military officials.

•    The Communities & Local Government department has announced spending cuts of £32m to take effect in the current financial year. The department made the announcement as it published information on all spending on goods and services in 2009-10.

•    The Audit Commission, the watchdog responsible for auditing the spending of many local public services, is to be scrapped. The body employs 2,000 people. Communities minister Eric Pickles said councils could ask private companies to carry out their audits.

•    The Central Office of Information (COI) has said it will reduce staff numbers by 40 per cent, after its workload dropped following the freeze on non-essential advertising and marketing spend across central government.

•    An NAO report questioned the value of Private Finance Initiative (PFI), saying the credit crisis had resulted in increased financing costs.

•    Seven staff from HM Revenue and Customs have been sacked after an investigation into racially-motivated gross misconduct. The men, based at the HMRC call centre in Belfast, had been deliberately under-paying benefits to ethnic minorities.

•    A senior official from the Home Office was suspended after questioning a decision by home secretary Theresa May to ban a Muslim preacher from Britain.

•    The Home Office has disposed of four buildings in central London, after adopting flexible working practices which allowed an extra 650 people to work in its Marsham Street headquarters.

•    National security adviser Sir Peter Ricketts is to step down next year. Sir Peter was appointed as security adviser to David Cameron in May, and is supporting the National Security Council (NSC). The NSC will deliver a national security strategy in the autumn.

•    A new unit looking at alternative ways to influence public behaviour is taking shape in the Cabinet Office. It will be led by David Halpern, director of research at the Institute for Government.

Written by CSW