CIVIL SERVICE QUARTERLY Issue 21 THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES – Subscribe for free here: October 2019 PRESERVING OUR SHARED HISTORY quarterly.blog.gov.uk IN THE DIGITAL AGE #CSQuarterly STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY – AND WHY IT’S NO LONGER AN “EASY SELL” CONTENTS SAFEGUARDING OUR NATION’S STORY John Sheridan, Digital Director, The National Archives 4 STRENGTHENING DEMOCRACY AROUND Anthony Smith, CEO, Westminster Foundation for Democracy 10 THE WORLD FINDING THE ‘UNICORNS’: BEHAVIOURAL David Halpern, CEO, Behavioural Insights Team 16 SCIENCE IN GOVERNMENT GROWS UP ADAPTING OUR APPROACH TO Nick Smallwood, CEO, Infrastructure and Projects Authority 22 MANAGING MAJOR PROJECTS SPOTLIGHT: NEXT STEPS AND CHALLENGES Melanie Dawes, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Housing, 28 FOR CIVIL SERVICE DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION Communities and Local Government MEASURING DEFENCE PRODUCTIVITY: Major Dom Prtak, Finance & Military Capability, 32 A FIRST STEP Ministry of Defence AN INTERVIEW WITH JOHN PULLINGER John Pullinger, former UK National Statistician, 38 Head of the Government Statistical Service and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority Civil Service Quarterly opens up the CONTACT US EDITORIAL BOARD Civil Service to greater collaboration [email protected] Sir Chris Wormald, Permanent and challenge, showcases excellence Room 317, 70 Whitehall, Secretary, Department of Health and invites discussion. If the Civil London, SW1A 2AS and Social Care (chair) Service is to be truly world-leading, it needs to collaborate more, learn Read the magazine online Alex Aiken, Executive Director, from experts outside the Civil and subscribe for free – Government Communications Service, listen more to the public quarterly.blog.gov.uk David Halpern, Chief Executive, and front-line staff and respond Behavioural Insights Team to new challenges with innovation EDITORIAL TEAM and boldness. Helen Card, Cabinet Office, Clare Moriarty, Permanent [email protected] Secretary, Department for Exiting Any civil servant can write for the European Union Civil Service Quarterly – contact Simon Holder, Cabinet Office Bernadette Kelly, Permanent [email protected] [email protected] Secretary, Department for Transport Cover photo: © Crown copyright Thanks to Shannen Catalan and Jonathan Slater, Permanent Secretary, Benjamin Jackson, Department Department for Education of Health and Social Care Sir Patrick Vallance, Government MEDIA CONTACT Chief Scientific Adviser Matthew Blom, Cabinet Office Sir Richard Lambert, Chairman, [email protected] Board of Trustees, British Museum Sam Beckett, Joint Head, Government Economic Service Charles Roxburgh, Director General, Financial Services, HM Treasury Jill Rutter, Programme Director, Institute for Government EDITORIAL WFD CEO Anthony Smith most inclusive employer. She looks at how the foundation is introduces two civil servants promoting democracy when, as from underrepresented groups he writes, it is no longer an easy who describe their experience, sell in any country, no matter and she pinpoints five ways in how mature its democratic which we can all help to turn institutions. ambition into reality. It is nearly a decade since Improving productivity is another body set up by the another major preoccupation UK Government became the of successive governments. An first in the world dedicated to equally abiding question is how applying behavioural science to to measure it in the first place. WELCOME TO THE 21ST public policy issues. Behavioural In Defence, says Major Dom EDITION OF CIVIL SERVICE Insights Team CEO David Prtak, the problem is twofold, QUARTERLY Halpern identifies the policy involving the hypothetical rticles in this issue range ‘unicorns’ – the successful nature of Defence outputs, Afar and wide, but share ‘nudges’ prompted by when military action is purposely a focus on some of the behavioural insights, including avoided, compounded by the pre-eminent challenges facing in health, welfare and education fact that deterrence is itself a key 21st-century government, – and suggests the policy areas outcome. He explains how the from effective policy-making where the next generation of MOD is approaching the problem and use of statistics, to mythical beasts may show of measuring effectiveness in an supporting democracy, and themselves. area we all hope will never be measuring and improving tested in earnest. As CEO of the Infrastructure productivity in a modern and Projects Authority, Nick To close this edition, we economy. Smallwood oversees the interviewed John Pullinger, who The National Archives is the Government Major Projects retired this year as UK National home of the UK Government’s Portfolio. All these projects Statistician. In an age of corporate memory and of our are designed to transform proliferating data and statistics, shared history, preserved in an services for citizens, improving he says the statistician’s job is at astonishingly varied collection, government efficiency and the heart of democracy, helping from parchment to websites. implementing new policy. us to gain insight into how we Among the 14 million records However, such projects are live and to make sure everyone in its catalogue are treasures inherently complex, and – as is able to make good decisions including Domesday, the recent history shows – things for themselves and wider confessions of Guy Fawkes, and do, inevitably, go wrong. society. He also gives his views the last telegram sent from the Although analysis shows that on subjects including fake news, Titanic. John Sheridan, TNA’s the causes of such failures the proper sharing of data, Digital Director, examines how are different, as Nick writes, and the level of data literacy the archives are tackling the there are shared features that in public life. urgent issue of managing the it is important to learn from shift to digital records and the and apply to future projects. risks to preserving them. Sir Chris Wormald, Permanent This issue’s Spotlight feature Secretary, Department of Health From the body responsible trains its beam on progress and Social Care for safeguarding the record towards a truly inclusive Civil of the UK’s political past and Service. Thirty years into the historic development of its her career as a civil servant, democratic institutions, to a Permanent Secretary Melanie group working to establish and Dawes says she has seen preserve democracy around considerable change for the the world. The Westminster better. Now, as the organisation’s Foundation for Democracy Champion for Diversity and (WFD) is the UK Government’s Inclusion, she is aware of the democracy-support agency for scale of the task that remains developing countries. to realise the Civil Service’s ambition of being the UK’s Let us know what you think by email to [email protected] or on Twitter #CSQuarterly 4 CIVIL SERVICE QUARTERLY | Issue 21 – October 2019 SAFEGUARDING OUR NATION’S STORY John Sheridan, Digital Director, The National Archives Above all, we are keepers of evidence. Our collection holds insights into some of the most difficult policy issues of the past CIVIL SERVICE QUARTERLY | Issue 21 – October 2019 5 hat do you think of when We provide a range of services Wsomeone mentions The for Civil Service colleagues National Archives? Possibly, the wishing to consult the records time-honoured tradition of old first-hand, at our reading rooms government files ceremoniously in Kew or remotely at their place released to the public between of work. Our searchable online Christmas and New Year. catalogue, Discovery, provides Perhaps, the notion of a storage details on our collection, and facility, or an impression of all publicly available records quiet, scholarly research. Given are available to civil servants. that we have been around Discovery also includes records in one form or another since we hold that are, under Freedom 1983, there are lots of possible of Information legislation, thoughts. Whatever comes exempt from public release. to mind, you should not be Each department works with us surprised to learn that, in the through its named Departmental 21st century, we are responsible Records Officer, who can advise for so much more. applicants on the process for accessing these records should The National Archives is a they need them for their work. non-ministerial department, under the Department for As a living archive, our collection Digital, Culture, Media and continues to grow. Last year, we Sport, and the official archive added more than 55,000 new and publisher for the UK records from across government. Government and for England The ongoing transition to the and Wales. Its collection is 20-year rule for release of unique, dating back more government documents means than 1,000 years, with records the records being passed to us touching on the history of are increasingly contemporary. almost every part of the world. This has changed both the public conversation around The collection is astonishingly the government record and varied, from parchment to sharpened the challenge for websites. Among the 14 million us in preserving it, in whatever records described in the format. catalogue are treasures including Domesday, Shakespeare’s will, REFOCUSING RESOURCES the confessions of Guy Fawkes, and the last telegram sent from The format of government the Titanic. records has altered dramatically. In December 2018, we released WORKING WITH CIVIL files that revealed how some SERVANTS members of Sir John Major’s government in 1994 did not