About the Civil Service
Review: Change: Deliver - 9 November 2007
- Video from the conference [9.3MB, 4mins 47secs WMV]
Overview
Review: Change: Deliver was an all day conference engaging key leaders around the transformation challenges that the Cabinet Secretary is driving forward.
Hosted by the Top 200 Transformation Group in partnership with the Cabinet Office, it offered both input from experts and an opportunity to feedback on change and capability issues. The event drew strong support, both in the number and profile of senior Civil Servants who attended, and in the calibre of speakers. The speakers included the Chief of the Defence Staff; Clive Mather, the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Shell Canada; Professor Patrick Barwise, Emeritus Professor of Management and Marketing at London Business School; and the Cabinet Secretary, as well as leading experts from the private and public sector.
Key themes
Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, reinforced his commitment to driving change forwards across the Civil Service. Looking ahead to 2020, he emphasised that change now is important to meet the challenges that the future will bring - higher expectations of public services, greater IT connectivity, an ageing population and a need to achieve more with less. He stressed too the importance and benefits of raising diversity within the Civil Service.
Speaking on aspects of leadership, both keynote speakers stressed the importance of delivering excellence, focusing on what matters most and leading by example when delivering challenging objectives. They both set out the importance of the authenticity of leaders, so those in their charge could relate to them while focusing together on achieving the task in hand.
‘Take-off or Tail-off?’
The event also marked the launch of the Sunningdale Institute Evaluation of the Capability Review Programme, ‘Take-off or Tail-off?’, which sets out the next steps for the transformation agenda.
Next steps
Making best use of the outputs, the Capability Reviews team have incorporated the findings from the afternoon sessions in the "Progress and Next Steps" report. Key issues raised in the morning sessions are being picked up in the forthcoming Change Breakfasts hosted by the Cabinet Office. Key issues and recommendations from the main sessions and workshops are being fed into the Top 200 forward work programme, with case studies and resources made available at the December meeting in Sunningdale. And Gus took away knowledge of the day's key outcomes, having heard the plenary discussion firsthand.
Resources
- Agenda [PDF, 24KB, 2 pages]
- The agenda provides an overview of the speakers and topics - Workshop key messages [PDF, 30KB, 2 pages] - Summary findings from the ‘Delivering Change’ and ‘Building Capability’ workshops
- Slides - Materials from the keynotes and workshops are available
- ‘Take-off or Tail-off?’ [PDF, 928KB, 51 pages] - A link to the Sunningdale Institute's evaluation of the Capability Review programme.
- Capability Reviews: Progress and Next Steps [PDF, 470KB, 69 pages] - This report looks at Tranche 1 departments a year on, common capability gaps and the future of the programme.