All posts by Colin Marrs

About Colin Marrs

Colin is a journalist and editor with long experience in the government and built environment sectors. He cut his teeth in local newspaper journalism before moving to Inside Housing in 1999. He has worked in a variety of roles for built environment titles including Planning, Regeneration & Renewal and Property Week. After a spell at advertising industry bible Campaign magazine, he became a freelancer in 2010. Since then he has edited PublicTechnology.net, local government finance publication Room151.co.uk and contributed news and features to Civil Service World, Architects’ Journal, Social Housing, management titles and written white papers for major corporate and public sector clients.

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  Canada appoints partners to replace Phoenix pay system

  The Canadian government has appointed three tech vendors to test the options for replacing its doomed Phoenix pay system. Last year, the Ottawa administration announced that it would scrap Phoenix and

  • Posted June 19, 2019
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  Canadian unions agree Phoenix compensation deal

  Civil service unions in Canada have signed a deal to compensate more than 146,000 government employees hit by the failure of the government’s Phoenix payroll system. Unions have accepted an

  • Posted May 26, 2019
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  UK loosens rules on pay and bonuses – but with no new money

  The UK government is set to ditch further aspects of its ‘forced distribution’ performance management framework – allowing more senior civil servants (SCS) to receive bonuses – and give departments

  • Posted May 23, 2019
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  French and Canadians to launch global panel on ethical AI

  A clutch of countries have expressed formal interest in joining an international panel to foster international collaboration on the development of artificial intelligence (AI), which is being set up by

  • Posted May 22, 2019
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  Behavioural science could boost gender equality, says OECD

  A ‘behavioural insights’ approach to promoting gender equality in public services could help overcome the shortcomings of targets and regulatory approaches, according to a report by the OECD. The organisation

  • Posted March 17, 2019
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  Unions welcome Trump’s nomination for federal HR chief

  US president Donald Trump has announced that he intends to nominate former Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) chair Dale Cabaniss to lead the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) – which

  • Posted March 14, 2019
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  Automated for the people: putting robots to work

  Robotic Process Automation technologies can take on swathes of routine, repetitive administrative work. But good delivery is key: at Innovation 2019, an expert panel picked out some of the lessons

  • Posted March 12, 2019
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  UK ID verification scheme hit by “optimism bias and ill-defined objectives”, says watchdog

  The UK’s flagship digital identity verification system has been severely criticised by the National Audit Office, in a move likely to reinforce the search for alternative models among other governments.

  • Posted March 11, 2019
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  UK’s former EU rep: government’s No Deal threats unconvincing

  The UK government’s attempts to use the threat of a No Deal Brexit to force further concessions out of the EU carry little weight on the Continent, the former UK

  • Posted March 11, 2019
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  UK watchdog highlights failure of innovation-focused probation contracts

  A confused approach to fostering innovation contributed to the failure of the UK government’s probation outsourcing reforms, according to a spending watchdog. In 2013, the Ministry of Justice outsourced the

  • Posted March 4, 2019
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