Cameron's shake-up of the civil service comes as unions are angry about the coalition's deep public spending cuts that could throw half a million government employees out of work.

Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the head of the civil service, Gus O'Donnell, will launch the new business plans at an event in London later on today.

The coalition says the business plans are different from the targets set by the previous Labour government which Cameron says created inefficiency and bred bureaucracy.

"The target culture pressured people to go for short-term wins at the expense of long-term improvements. Today we are turning that on its head," Cameron will say, according to excerpts of his speech released in advance by his office.

"Instead of bureaucratic accountability to the government machine, these business plans bring in a new system of democratic accountability ... Reform will be driven not by the short-term political calculations of the government, but by the consistent, long-term pressure of what people want and choose in their public services," he will say.

The business plans will set out in detail the actions the government plans to take over the next four years. They will also say what information the government will publish so the public can hold it to account, Cameron will say.

The plans will be published in parliament and be available to the public on a government website.

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6A705G20101108