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ACE Seminar in Conversation with Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet

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ACE Seminar in Conversation with Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet ACE seminar In conversation with Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service 20 October 2017, Institute for Government Event Summary The Association of Chief Executives was delighted to welcome Sir Jeremy Heywood, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service to ACE to speak to members about the Civil Service’s priorities. Sir Jeremy opened by describing the unprecedented challenges currently facing the country, including economic uncertainty, poor productivity levels, and issues of national security. The Senior Civil Service has expanded to rise to these challenges as well as the task of exiting the European Union. He highlighted that complex scenario planning was being undertaken across departments, in addition to work on the necessary Brexit legislation. Despite the complexity of Brexit, the Civil Service was continuing to focus on its strategic priorities of improving commercial capability, digitalisation and increasing diversity, which will support public bodies. Progress has already been made strengthening commercial capability in central government, including rolling out rigorous development and assessment schemes, which will be expanded to arm’s-length bodies (ALBs) in due course. Sir Jeremy highlighted that the UK Civil Service is seen as a world leader in digitalisation; the ambition is for all interactions with government to be able to be carried out online by 2020. Significant progress has also been made increasing gender diversity in the Senior Civil Service in particular. However, Sir Jeremy explained that there is more work to do to increase representation in the areas of disability, ethnicity and socio-economic background. The launch of the new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion strategy seeks both to increase representation of under-represented groups and to establish a more robust approach to inclusion and building a culture that attracts, retains and nurtures the best and most diverse talent. A number of topics were raised during the Q&A discussion that followed. Jeremy noted the importance of close relationships with departments during periods of such change, and encouraged members to surface concerns if they do not feel that they are being listened to. Although Cabinet Office has been carrying out positive work in the areas of leadership and engagement, concern was expressed that the secondment programme between central government and ALBs was stopped. Sir Jeremy confirmed he would follow up on the rationale behind this decision. Sir Jeremy emphasised that, for those public bodies that work throughout the UK, it is vital to remain closely connected to the Devolved Administrations – there is no substitute for building personal relationships. The Civil Service is UK-wide and it is important to maintain these links. Members welcomed the recent launch of a new Civil Service Diversity and Inclusion strategy, part of which will include a Civil Service-wide target and increased focus on boosting the representation of under-represented groups in senior roles in particular. Sir Jeremy recognised that there would, ideally, be a number of role models to support this ambition. Members noted the difference between productivity levels in London/South East and the rest of the country, which may have contributed to recent political shocks. Sir Jeremy emphasised that addressing poor productivity performance is at the heart of the Industrial Strategy. Members also touched on public sector pay. Sir Jeremy explained that departments would need to make a strong argument for increases of more than 1%; forensic analysis should be conducted on staff engagement, morale and retention data, in addition to establishing the reasons why people leave the public sector. Sir Jeremy acknowledged that UK development of disruptive technologies was important - we have a good track record of innovation in this area. The right relationship with the EU would need to be struck in order maintain strong ongoing partnerships post-Brexit, while allowing the UK to take advantage of the opportunities Brexit would open up. Members discussed the merits of using big government data sets to help meet the expectations of consumers to save money and improve customers’ experience. The Government is committed to setting up an independent data and ethics commission, which will advise on the use of data and artificial intelligence. One member suggested that in order to garner the public’s trust, the commission should be made up of more than 50% lay people. Finally, members observed that smaller public bodies do not always have the budget to deliver programmes, such as developing the commercial profession within their organisation, and were keen to work with central government to see how resources could best be shared. The Public Bodies Reform Team is working with the commercial profession to extend support to ALBs and assist with recruitment in this area. [The ACE Secretariat has met with the Government Commercial Function and is planning on hosting an event with them next year.] .
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