#public-sector

#public-sector

Speaking during the inquiry's second evidence session on 29 October 2025, expert witnesses told Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights that, as it stands, the UK's "uncritical and deregulatory" approach to AI will fail to deal with the clear human rights harms presented by the technology. This includes harms related to surveillance and automated decision-making, which can variously impact both collective and individual rights to privacy, non-discrimination, and freedom of assembly; especially given the speed and scale at which the technology operates.

Public servants manage a geographically distributed group of people across dozens of public and private organizations daily. Cybersecurity officials work with state and federal counterparts, and homelessness coordinators work with public health departments and nonprofits. State veterans affairs departments sit at the intersection of educational and health benefits along with housing and job assistance. From my conversations with public servants across the country, it's clear that most critical government functions cannot happen without collaboration.

"As many other organisations in both the public and private sectors have discovered, the IR35 rules are complex," he said. "But we accept that the mistakes that came to light should not have been made. Our focus has been to resolve the issue with HMRC and the Welsh Government, taking advice from legal and tax experts to inform our decisions."

Decentralized communications network Matrix is hoping to be the beneficiary as European public and private sector organizations ponder alternatives to the messaging status quo. During Matrix's recent Strasbourg conference, more than two dozen public sector entities were noted to have tried (or were currently using) the technology. The vast majority were European, highlighting worries on the continent about dependency on closed and potentially insecure messaging platforms.

The aim is for the ID cards to be rolled out before the next election and initially used to prove people's right to work, before being expanded to store health and benefits data to streamline access to public services and tackle fraud. Ministers have told MPs there is a firm commitment to build the digital ID within the public sector and not contract it out to private companies.

In 2021, Sanaa Shaikh was burned out. As a South Asian woman working in an overwhelmingly white and male profession, she had spent years experiencing her fair share of discrimination and microaggressions-while at the same time being tasked with designing housing developments for underserved communities where she routinely felt like her ideas and perspective were dismissed. She was ready to move on.

"It's an agreement that recognises our value...as a huge client of their organisation, and how important their technology is to help us deliver changes to public services, to make them more in touch, more in tune and better value for money for taxpayers."

The way out of this dispute is to negotiate, not frustrate.

Mark Drakeford stated that the way Reeves has used the Barnett formula constitutes a violation of budgeting agreements, impacting public services in Wales.

They will be informed in the coming days of the sums to be repaid, ranging from as low as €100 up to €30,000.

In 2011, the Canadian government hired IBM for a new pay system, the Phoenix system, which led to significant issues overpaying or underpaying civil servants.

Although paying employees may have been necessary in the very beginning of the pandemic, the CTA's payment for no work continued week after week for five years. No justifiable reason for this continued payment was provided in any CTA documents or by any of the relevant CTA employees interviewed.

In many cases, the difference in remuneration between the public and private sectors isn’t as vast as often perceived, and public organizations can be competitive.

The UK's public sector productivity has declined for a second consecutive year and is now lower than 1997 levels, raising significant concerns about fiscal stability.

As public sector law enforcement professionals leave their roles, they find more security job opportunities, particularly in executive protection, but face challenges shifting to corporate security.

The union is pushing for two significant pay claims aimed at addressing responsibilities and retention challenges for assistant principal and principal officer grades.

Micheál Martin suggested that a new housing office could be led by a public sector employee at no extra salary cost, amid criticism of high bureaucratic salaries.