To do your job well, you need…
To trust your team. We rely on a fantastic team of legal, policy, project and rail experts – we need to focus on what only we can do and empower them to deliver.
First job in government
Elisabeth: Forecasting oil prices during the 2000 fuel crisis – we had to change them a lot!
Lucy: Also in 2000: writing a plan for future introduction of the Euro in the UK. How times change!
Proudest achievement to date
The introduction of the railways bill on 5 November – we’ve been working on it for five years! This generational change will make the railway more customer friendly, efficient and drive growth and connectivity across Britain.
Most bizarre thing that’s happened to you at work
Lucy: Being called Elisabeth (this happens vice versa too). Occupational hazard of a job-share, despite looking nothing like each other.
Elisabeth: Driving a remotely operated vehicle in a pond at Sellafield when I was responsible for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.
If you weren’t a civil servant, you’d be...
Elisabeth: A psychologist – I’m interested in why people behave the way they do.
Lucy: An ecologist – I’m fascinated by the idea of nature as a system.
What’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve ever been given?
Lucy: When you lose, don’t lose the lesson – there’s always something positive to take from the hard stuff that happens to you.
Elisabeth: Sometimes you need to change the system to fix the problem, even though that can be harder.
If you could wave a magic wand over the civil service, what would you change?
To be more agile and responsive. With limited resources, you have to stop things to deliver new priorities.