On Wednesday we hosted Mayor David Skaith for an 'In Conversation' as part of ongoing 'Meetings with Mayors' series
Policy Director, @stkaye.bsky.social, has written a blog with his key takeaways from the event
Best of luck with what's next my friend. It has been a privelege.
It will be really sad to go, but I leave with so many fantastic memories, friends & an exciting opportunity to come 👀
It's such a privilege to work in a think tank and be exposed everyday to experts and officials who are so generous with their time and want to make the world a better place
And to work with colleagues who are all pulling in the same direction and I now consider close friends
And last (but not at all least) to @seaneke.bsky.social
and @floconway.bsky.social who are both total legends, I've had some of my best work memories with and are so committed to everyone they work with and everything they do
And to @rosiebeacon.bsky.social who is an absolute powerhouse, the MVP of interesting office chat, and such a pleasure to work with
Backed up by @alicesemark.bsky.social who has hit the ground running (sprinting!) at Reform, lives and breathes what we do, and is relentlessly positive
A massive shout out to Sylvie Macdonald who single handedly runs our GOAT events programme, is such a pro and brings the best possible energy to the office
To @sebrees1.bsky.social and @indiaww.bsky.social who made Reform the best place to start my career, constantly went above and beyond and are two of the most fun, proactive people you could hope to work with
To @stkaye.bsky.social and @jo3hill.bsky.social for being such incredibly generous, kind and thoughtful line managers
Their feedback has always helped me see things differently and their enthusiasm for everything that goes on here is infectious
Firstly, @charliepickles.bsky.social, who I've been so lucky to work with and learn from and who's not only helped Reform triple in size(!) in the time I've been here, but also built it into *the* most exciting and forward-looking think tank working to redesign the State and public services
🚨Personal news🚨
After three and a half brilliant, jam-packed years @reformthinktank.bsky.social, today is my final day
I'll still be based in Westminster (more on this to come). But if I could just give a quick shout out to the exceptional people I've worked with 🧵
My last ever Reform blog!
On the dynamics of when it's best/easiest to enact radical change
Why do we continue to see competitive salaries in the public sector as a problem?
There are plenty of reasons to cull quangos, but how much senior staff are paid is not one of them
In fact being able to pay a competitive salary is one reasons quangos are created
This says much more about the frugality of PM's pay than it does about officials running some of the most important and specialist parts of the State
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...
I've been wanting to write about this for a while.
A senior official once told @reformthinktank.bsky.social that the future is "policymaking as code".
What does that say about the value of policymaking? And the future of the civil service/think tank/charity complex?
How can we make Neighbourhood Boards truly successful? 🏘️
In the blog this week, researcher, @floconway.bsky.social, shares her thoughts...
V excited for this next week! 🔥
What's it really like working inside Downing Street? What works, what doesn't? How does the machine need to change?
🎉The Blog is out!
This week, our Head of Health, @rosiebeacon.bsky.social, writes about the Govt's plans for secondary care and the challenges facing proposed reforms... 🏥🚑
The 'prioritise my thing' in Whitehall playbook:
1) The empowered Chair/Chief Exec
2) Unlimited authority - granted direct from PM
3) Single business case + budget
4) Pay *much* more than civil service to get *actual experts*
Antimicrobial resistance is a major challenge to the UK’s health security and is already responsible for a significant burden of death, disability and prolonged illness globally.
We've submitted evidence to the Public Accounts Committee's inquiry on AMR governance, with insights from our research👇
Great to see the Evaluation Registry go live.
As we argued in Efficiency Mindset, there should be every incentive for depts to develop policies with a strong VfM evidence base.
Making past evaluations more transparent & accessible clearly supports this.
civilservice.blog.gov.uk/2025/03/31/p...
We need to boldly commission a public review in how we mean to be bold. Then conduct a consultation on bold measures, put that through several cabinet committees, notably the Committee on Bold Action, and then argue about them in the run up to a fiscal moment. Where we'll discover there's no money
I think this is key, nothing in principle is preventing government changing some of this very quickly.
And, e.g., moves to create specialist DDaT pay bands are encouraging.
If government is cutting “admin costs” by 15% (and headcount) now is definitely the time to get serious about this stuff.
I think there are small pockets that show that - with the right political buy-in - it’s possible to flex pay and certain aspects of culture/branding (relevant section of report below).
But agreed, question is then how you scale this against enormous resistance to breaking current, uniform approach.
100% agreed on NICE and MHRA, which just wouldn’t be able to perform their core functions effectively in DHSC.
We suggested neither be brought in-house.
On civil service expertise, I think it’s an important argument to make, but definitely fighting the long fight on that one!
This is also the right approach: insourcing decision-making relies on building subject specific expertise within departments.
The real prize is taking talent *and* accountability in Whitehall much more seriously - see, e.g., the AI Safety Institute, which remains within DSIT.
Exactly the logic we @reformthinktank.bsky.social set out as the right justification for arm’s length bodies in our report Quangocracy, last month👇
More thoughts to follow from the team…
