Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government. I'm Hannah White.

So, was Dominic Cummings right all along? Well, Boris Johnson's one-time sidekick doesn't ever seem to think the IFG is right,

but perhaps we're a little more generous in spirit, because where Cummings once called for the civil service to recruit an army of misfits and weirdos,

now it's Pat McFadden, the minister for the cabinet office, who is making a plea for what he calls

disruptors to make Whitehall think like a startup. We'll take a look at his latest vision for reform.

Rachel Reeves has another plan to whip Whitehall into shape, and it's a familiar one. The

Chancellor is on the hunt for efficiency savings, so where could they be found, and will they

really make a difference? And then we'll switch our attention from rewiring the civil

service to rethinking the prison service, because the government has set out plans to build new

prisons.

It also admits that even this big expansion of spaces may not be enough to ease the country's prisons crisis. So what is the plan and what else needs to be done?

Joining me throughout is the IFG's Civil Service Watcher-in-chief, Alex Thomas, do you consider yourself a disruptor, Alex?

Well, I think Dominic Cummings certainly doesn't, given the slightly weird things,

he sometimes throws my direction on Twitter. But the more serious point, I think, is that I'm much

more of a disruptor now, having spent five years outside the Civil Service, or nearly five years, than I was when I was inside the civil service. So there is something interesting

about the culture and approach of the civil service when you're kind of in the machine.

Very interesting. Tom Pope, our Deputy Chief Economist, is back to any efficiency savings

to be found in your outgoing, Tom?

Probably lots of this time of year, I think, Anna. And I'm delighted to welcome Jess Stutt,

who is Chief Executive of New Local Think Tank. Hi, Jess. Thanks for joining us.

Pleasure. So, last week, we had Kirstama's Plan for Change, and this week over in East London,

Pat McPudden set out what sounded more like a plea for change.

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