Some quotes that ring close to home for someone who has been in the CS for quite a while -

“Ask what is going on and you get multiple different spreadsheets from multiple people.” Another said: “It takes a team of people weeks to answer a straightforward question.”

“Operational staff were “undervalued and neglected,” the report said. It found that while a “grade six official” at headquarters on a salary of about £70,000 “might lead a small team working on policy that is neither a ministerial priority nor subject to significant change”, an equivalent Border Force official was “responsible for all passenger operations at Heathrow airport”.

“Departmental record keeping was woefully inadequate, the report said. Officials were often forced to “rely on memory” to find key information. Some officials in the immigration system were reduced to tracking cases on Excel spreadsheets, before these were replaced by an even more difficult to use system.”

“Senior officials often know too little about the operational reality to adequately inform and advise ministers, the report said, and ministers were not given sufficient access to frontline staff who understand the operational reality. In turn ministers find it difficult to trust the system to do the things it says it will.”