All posts by Ben Willis

About Ben Willis

Ben Willis is a journalist and editor with a varied background reporting on topics including public policy, the environment, renewable energy and international development. His work has appeared in a variety of national newspapers including the Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Times, as well as numerous specialist business, policy and consumer publications.

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  There’s no going back: the future of hybrid working in civil services

  Research shows that many officials do not want to return to the office full-time after the pandemic. At a recent GGF webinar, experts from across the world discussed how governments

  • Posted June 10, 2021
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  ‘Never stop challenging the system’: the mindset that took Jeremy Heywood to the top of the UK civil service

  Aspiring civil servants should follow the example of the widely-admired former UK Cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood and seek to drive change by continuously challenging the “status quo”, his wife

  • Posted February 12, 2021
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  Emotion recognition tech fundamentally flawed, says human rights charity

  Emerging AI-based emotion recognition technologies are “untenable” under international human rights law, and developing, designing or sharing such tech should be banned, a recent report has argued.  The study, which

  • Posted February 12, 2021
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  Obama’s leadership adviser appointed to key HR role

  US president Joe Biden has appointed an Obama-era personnel official to lead efforts to rebuild relationships between the White House and the federal workforce, following four years of tension and

  • Posted February 11, 2021
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  Fitting COVID-19 into the infrastructure puzzle

  After years of stop-start work on a national infrastructure plan, the Treasury made capital investment a key element of the government’s ‘levelling up’ agenda. Then COVID-19 struck, raising big questions

  • Posted July 26, 2020
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  From Whitehall to Walsall: redistributing the civil service

  Among all the UK government’s civil service reform agendas, it is the goal of moving officials out of London and the South-East that is moving most quickly – with heavyweight

  • Posted July 16, 2020
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  UK civil service urged to step up professionalism reforms

  A report has called for a “greater sense of urgency” around ongoing reforms to the UK civil service to ensure it has a “fighting chance” of handling the growing pressures

  • Posted September 13, 2017
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  White House federal IT plan details revamp of ‘outdated’ system

  A report ordered by President Donald Trump has set out recommendations for an overhaul of the “unwieldy and out-of-date” US federal IT system, in part to address today’s heightened cybersecurity

  • Posted September 6, 2017
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  Australia seeks to break stranglehold of big government IT suppliers

  The Australian government has unveiled radical reforms designed to force federal agencies to end their dependence on big IT suppliers, whilst opening up major new markets to smaller technology firms.

  • Posted August 25, 2017
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  Former Northern Ireland civil service head to join peace charity board

  The former Northern Ireland civil service permanent secretary, Sir Malcolm McKibbin, is to join the board of Co-operation Ireland: a charity that works to advance peace and reconciliation between Northern

  • Posted August 23, 2017
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