West Coast fiasco shows our civil service falls at the first hurdle This calibre of person is present in the civil service only as an exception, rather than the rule. Whitehall lacks leaders capable of thinking like the people it's supposed to serve (that's us through our elected politicians) and the people who are increasingly delivering the services it's mandated to provide, which is business. Until leaders capable of grappling with complex problems are either recruited, or created, in Whitehall and who can imbue in civil service staff a culture of performance and delivery, then ambitions to transform UK services as varied as education, welfare, transport and other infrastructure will be stymied. Just as Britain's Olympic athletes have been transformed from well meaning but perennial losers into astonishing world beaters, so too must our civil service as a whole recognise it is simply not good enough and desperately needs to raise its game. John Fallon's early years at the top may be choppy John Fallon must overcome a case of "long-serving predecessor syndrome" when he steps up to replace Dame Marjorie Scardino as Pearson chief executive in January. As we've seen at the likes of Tesco and Reed Elsevier, replacing someone who's been in the top job for a decade or more can result in some choppy early years for the newcomer. He'll also have to medicate for that constant Pearson "will they, won't they" condition relating to ownership of the FT Group. Dame Marjorie's "not over my dead body" approach to a possible sale has been finessed in recent years and the message yesterday was that Pearson is "strategic not religious" about the Financial Times. The FT Group, and Penguin for that matter, are vestiges of Pearson's conglomerate past and, as with any conglomerate, assets fit the strategy until they don't. For the moment both fit the education and learning mantra but if values of media stocks improve, especially for those with decent digital prospects, that might change. Anyway, the biggest risk for Fallon appears to be Pearson's largest division - North American Education. Underlying sales fell 1pc in the last financial year, although international (which Fallon has been running) more than made up and total sales advanced 1pc. At the more recent half year, US sales were down 2pc so clearly another year of decline is likely. That said, to judge Dame Marjorie's 16 years on a recent cyclical downturn in US education would be harsh. Her departure from Pearson by the end of the year may strike some as hasty, but given Fallon has been at the company almost as long as she has, any longer would seem odd. Anyway, as far as Dame Marjorie's record is concerned she failed to hit her initial performance targets, in the first five years, of doubling the value of the company and delivering annual double-digit growth in earnings per share. The company was also sucked up into the dot com boom and then promptly dropped with the crash. But over the last 10 years she has delivered on focusing the business on education while diversifying out of the US and adopting more digital distribution. The result: total returns of 217pc versus the FTSE 100 up 137pc. For an education company, it has been a pretty valuable lesson in creating shareholder value. Supermarkets should look to what comes Next Tesco and J Sainsbury told two very different stories on Wednesday. Tesco's a tale of woe with some improvement, Sainsbury's a tale of success with improvement on all fronts. But only eight years ago the roles were reversed and Justin King, Sainsbury's chief executive, knows to avoid hubris as he takes the praise. The situation can reverse again. Philip Clarke, his Tesco counterpart, has acted quickly to try to reverse the company's UK underperformance and a 0.1pc sales rise is progress, albeit very modest. That said, the danger for all grocers is that they do not adjust quickly enough. Whether the decline in food volumes is cyclical or permanent, the growth in online shopping will mean store space becoming increasingly redundant. Clarke says the space race is over but a new one may be starting - the race to shed stores before rivals do it more successfully. Tesco's famous profit margins are now being sacrificed to defend store-based sales which may compute at the moment but Clarke's own fascination with digital sales reveals where the future lies. And falling store sales does not necessarily equate to a poor stockmarket rating - just consider Next. Although it's a high street clothes retailer, it has shown how a combination of well executed digital sales combined with share buy backs and management focus on efficiency has kept investors happy for years.