Hiring new Whitehall geniuses is like pouring water into a leaky jug | Nitika Agarwal

To transform the civil service, look to Canada or Portugal for ways to unlock the treasure trove of talent

The floodgates are open: Dominic Cummings is well on his way, apparently, to recruiting "true cognitive diversity" into government. Forget those fusty old civil service interviews, wooden as a GCSE French oral exam. His call - made via a personal blog - for "weirdos" and those with data and quantitative skills has reportedly garnered thousands of applications.

This is just the start of his plan to "make rapid progress on long-term problems". But a few new people in No 10, however maverick, will make little difference. The whole machine needs to change if Cummings is to achieve the vision of a responsive, citizen-centred, 21st-century government.