When was the last time you felt the “weird whoosh of terror and relief that comes from real, heartfelt boldness”?
This is what we asked civil service reform DG Janet Hughes in her first interview in the job (page 19 in our new autumn issue). Never shy about plundering our own archives, our question was a reference to something Hughes herself wrote for CSW nearly a decade ago while at the Government Digital Service. Back then, Hughes said she was at her best under those conditions. Today, she tells us that the “whoosh” came when applying for her current job after years as director of a high-profile programme at Defra.
I’ve felt that tempestuous mix of feelings several times in the three months since I took over editing CSW’s print issue after seven years spent mostly on the newsdesk.
Naturally, I’ve spent that time thinking about what it takes to do this job well – and naturally, I’ve been gleaning wisdom from the interviewees in this issue who have shared what it takes to do their jobs well.
Empathy and a willingness to listen is a big theme, and Tessa Jones shares some solid advice in Directors’ Cut (page eight in the new issue): “It’s amazing what you can achieve if you don’t mind who gets the credit.” But the standout line for me comes from Hughes, who says her role requires “the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.
These words were a helpful reminder when – just as we were making final edits to this edition – Angela Rayner resigned as housing secretary and deputy prime minister, sparking a cabinet reshuffle that included new work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden scooping up the skills brief from the education department. This came on top of a “reset” earlier in the week that saw the Missions Delivery Unit move from the Cabinet Office to a newly created delivery unit in No.10.
The shift in focus away from five flagship missions towards three top priorities (growth, borders and the NHS) – and the uncertainty about what that means for the missions – was unsettling news. Not least because we have spent the last three months trying to learn as much as we can about the (somewhat clunkily named) breaking down barriers to opportunity mission: the focus of this issue.
As I write this, the dust is still settling on Keir Starmer’s No.10 shakeup, but I can say one thing with relative certainty: work to reduce barriers to opportunity will continue in some form, no matter the policy guise it comes under.
And it is important work, as I was reminded when speaking to Paulette Hamilton, acting chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, about its inquiry looking at children’s first 1,000 days of life (page 40 in the autumn issue). She told me she saw very little of health professionals during her own pregnancy and felt no one was listening to her because she hadn’t hit crisis point. Hamilton’s story shows how easy it is for people to slip through the net, and she told me how much she would have welcomed the support offered by the family hubs that are being rolled out through the Best Start programme (page 36).
Perhaps the move away from the five missions will itself be an opportunity. After all, as Hamilton said, the missions have not always been easy for the general public – or, indeed, the sectors they affect most – to understand. The IfG’s Heloise Dunlop gave a similar warning, when talking about the Community Mission Challenge, that the missions appear to have been treated “more like targets rather than this ‘new way of working’”. And in what may have been a sign that change has been on the way for a while, Dunlop noted that in recent months, there seems to have been “very little about missions coming from central Whitehall departments”.
So perhaps a shakeup is no bad thing; for now, I will leave you with the horrible cliché that only time will tell. In the meantime, like Hughes, I’ll be striving to make “deliberate, careful and ideally wise choices” in the months and years to come as I keep our quarterly magazine at the heart of what CSW is all about: helping you do the best in your jobs, whatever change lies ahead.
Read CSW's autumn issue as an ebook here. Prefer the PDF version? Click here