What does it mean to you to be recognised in the Birthday Honours list?
Slightly embarrassed but very flattered! I have loved both roles that inspired this award. It’s great to see both the contribution of robust, well-utilised evidence and the positive impact of trying out more innovative approaches being recognised in government.
What does your role involve?
I’m the head of futures capability in GO-Science. A fabulous job title! I design, develop and deliver training, tools and wider awareness-raising about what futures can offer people in government, the wider public sector and beyond – working with brilliant colleagues and partner organisations to make it happen.
And how does your work further evidence-based policymaking and innovation?
Futures work combines the two. It draws upon robust data sources to identify trends and emerging changes. It then uses creativity and imagination to explore what that might mean for the world around us, and how government might respond – not to predict what might happen, but to be more agile and flexible, whatever it does. I don’t design policy in my current role but I work with departments who do. The tools we use help people test the resilience of policies, strategies and delivery plans and hopefully come up with solutions that work better for longer.
How did you end up in that role?
Most of my civil service career has been in ministerial departments, primarily the Department of Health and Social Care and what’s now the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government. Whilst in DHSC, I did an MSc in health policy that made me want to work more on the role of evidence in policy. I had a teammate who’d worked for GO-Science, I attended an excellent “evidence safari” workshop they ran, loved it, and applied for a role there shortly afterwards. That role involved researching and publishing Foresight reports that apply futures approaches and a long-range perspective to cross-cutting government challenges. My current role helps others to learn how to do that themselves.
Apart from receiving this honour, what has been your proudest moment at work?
In this role, designing and launching our online futures training, which received a government science and engineering profession award and helped us reach thousands more civil servants. Designing online training is not my comfort zone but I had expert help from Government Skills and it was great fun to do – I even had my own film crew! Longer ago, getting board approval for a whole new innovation team in the then-DCLG – an idea that started as a two-week PowerPoint pack – was pretty cool.
What does it take to do your job well?
Enthusiasm and tenacity. Both roles involve persuading busy people to look up from their daily pressures and challenge themselves about how they could work differently. That can be hard – tackling today’s priorities is difficult enough and not everyone welcomes “helpful” new ideas. But futures can help you make a longer-lasting impact, so it’s worth giving them a try.
Tell us one thing we might not know about your job...
There are almost certainly people who use futures in your organisation. They might call it something else, but they’re doing it. Try your strategy team, your operational researchers, your analysts, your corporate planners. Seek them out. Or contact us on futures@go-science.gov.uk and we’ll do our best to help.