How Whitehall Works: How Labour is changing the way government works to focus on mission delivery
Following the UK general election, Labour has formed a government with a large majority – and with a focus on delivering five national missions. These are: kickstarting economic growth, making Britain a clean energy superpower; take back our streets by halving serious violent crime; breaking down barriers to opportunity; and building an NHS fit for the future.
Focusing on delivering these long-term missions requires, according to prime minister Keir Starmer, requires a different approach to government. It requires departments to working together, rather than working in traditional silos, as well as business working with unions, the private sector working with the public sector, and partnerships between national and local government.
How, then, will Labour change government to deliver these missions? This webinar, the fourth in Global Government Forum’s How Whitehall Works series, looked at the changes that Labour is making in government to drive progress on these missions, as well as other changes in how government is structured that can deliver on its priorities. The session also touched on what the Budget reveals about the government’s priorities for the next year and beyond.
Join this session to find out:
- How Labour is creating mission boards to focus on its priorities.
- How it is reorganising governments key digital agencies to ‘overhaul the experience of interacting with the government’.
- Who Labour is recruiting to civil service and wider government to help drive its agenda.
Panel
Patrick Diamond, Professor in Public Policy, Queen Mary University of London
Patrick held a number of senior posts in British central government between 2000 and 2010, and he was the Head of Policy Planning in 10 Downing Street.
Patrick was formally a Research Fellow in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester, and Gwilym Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He is a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College, University of Oxford and an Associate Member of Nuffield College.
He was a Local Councillor in the London Borough of Southwark from 2010 to 2014, and he has been a trustee of the Bromley by Bow Centre, a pioneering voluntary organisation led by the local community in East London. Patrick is a trustee of the Dartington Service Design Lab and the Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET). He is also on the Board of the Campaign for Social Science. He is Chair of the think-tank Policy Network, and sits on the Scientific Council of the Foundation for European Progressive Studies. He is a regular contributor to national newspapers, radio and TV programmes.
Seminars that Patrick delivers for Global Government Forum include:
Design Thinking for Public Service Innovation
Richard Johnstone, Executive Editor, Global Government Forum
Richard Johnstone is the executive editor of Global Government Forum, where he helps to produce editorial analysis and insight for the title’s audience of public servants around the world. Before joining GGF, he spent nearly five years at UK-based title Civil Service World, latterly as acting editor, and has worked in public policy journalism throughout his career.
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Webinar chair: Siobhan Benita, former UK senior civil servant
Siobhan Benita was a senior civil servant with over 15 years’ Whitehall experience. She worked in many of the major delivery departments, including Transport, Environment, Health and Local Government. She also had senior roles at the heart of Government in the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, including supporting the then Cabinet Secretary, Lord O’Donnell to lead work on Civil Service reform and strategy. Siobhan left the Civil Service to run as an independent candidate in the Mayor of London election. She subsequently joined her alma mater, Warwick University as Chief Strategy Officer of Warwick in London and Co-Director of the Warwick Policy Lab.
