The revised plans reveal that 87 of the plans’ deadlines have been postponed, and also show that the Cabinet Office has passed responsibility for action on a number of areas on to other departments.

Last year’s Cabinet Office business plan stated that it would work with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) and the Treasury to create the Public Data Corporation – which will be in charge of the release of public data. However, under the new plans it will now only “support” BIS and the Treasury. The deadline for the bank’s establishment has been moved from April to December 2011.

The Cabinet Office has also passed to departments the responsibility for the appointment of lead non-executive directors; the abolition of public bodies with a non-statutory function; the delivery of a lower-cost human resources function; the publication of performance scorecards against targets set out in departmental business plans; and the publication of all central government contracts over £10,000.

The Cabinet Office’s plan shows that the publication of the public services white paper, originally scheduled for January, has been delayed until July this year “after the NHS listening exercise”. A new model for Whitehall shared services has also been delayed until July.

The handing over of responsibilities follows criticism of the Cabinet Office for missing large numbers of deadlines – many of which required action by other departments across Whitehall. With the postponements, it appears to represent a scaling back of the Cabinet Office’s ambitions.

The Department for Work and Pensions also postponed a major policy: it no longer aims to automate the processing of all benefits by October 2012. Instead, it hopes “to significantly improve Jobseeker’s Allowance online by fully automating at least 75 per cent of the process, with the remainder still requiring a value-added intervention from staff.”

The Department of Health has not published an updated business plan, and is waiting for the end of its ‘listening exercise’ to do so: the revised plan will set out deadlines for NHS reform.

Meanwhile, 18 departments are producing action plans based on the capability reviews conducted under the previous government. A Cabinet Office spokesperson told CSWthat the departments have been asked to produce the action plans by next March. She added that this is an extension of the previous capability review process, explaining that this set of reviews will be entirely internal instead of – as previously – run by a Cabinet Office team.

This online bulletin corrects an inaccuracy in a news story printed yesterday in Civil Service World, for which we apologise.

Written by CSW