How (not) to manage your civil service, or what is “stepping down” anyway? - Prof Perri 6, Chair in Public Management, Queen Mary

Times photographer Matt Lloyd

So he’s going. Sir Bob Kerslake, that is. “Sir Bob who?”, you ask. He has been head of the civil service in the United Kingdom since 2011. “And why does it matter?”, you want to know. Oddly, the commentariat doesn’t agree on just what the really big issue is in Sir Bob stepping down, only that there surely is one. In fact, five very different debates have been rolled together. Let’s disentangle.