Sir Gus commented that he was quite 'traditional'.

New Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell has started work by trying to break the stereotype of civil servants.

Sir Gus spent Thursday visiting civil servants across London to show that they are not just based in Whitehall.

He replaces Sir Andrew Turnbull as the UK's top civil servant and will sit alongside Prime Minister Tony Blair at Cabinet meetings.

I think it's (trust is) one of these things we need to keep working on Sir Gus O'Donnell, Cabinet Secretary

He visited the Passport Office among other offices in the capital.

Speaking earlier Sir Gus said: "It's easy to presume that all civil servants simply operate out of Whitehall but on my first day, I want to get out of the office to see how they are delivering what people need at a community and customer level."

Earlier this week, Sir Alistair Graham, chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, warned that public trust in the government had not recovered since the Iraq war.

Sir Gus said in response to the comments: "At the moment, I'm listening and learning about a lot of these things.

"But where I strongly agree with Alistair is that on this business of trust I think it's one of these things we need to keep working on. How can we enhance trust?"

"I'll be looking for ways to improve trust in the public sector."

Asked about the informal style of government criticised in last year's Butler Report, Sir Gus said: "I'm quite traditional in the sense that it's very important that the advice that goes in is clearly there."

Sir Gus moves from being permanent secretary at the Treasury. He was John Major's press secretary in the 1990s.

He also had a stint as the British representative on the IMF and the World Bank while working at the UK Embassy in Washington.