Ministers have been warned that they risk civil servants feeling attacked after new guidance was published banning staff network meetings in working hours. The document said civil servants should make sure cross-government networks remained impartial, and brought in a requirement for senior managers to sign off events. One civil service union source said: “Work to mend the relationship between civil servants and ministers, which deteriorated so badly under the last government, is undone when policy developments are briefed exclusively to media which have a long history of attacking the civil service. Some of the biggest civil service staff networks are the Race Forum and the LGBT+ network. However, he said staff networks were valuable for many different groups within the civil service and there had been some undue criticism of legitimate networks.