Civil Service Live
NI peace process 'the ultimate cross-cutting project', says award winner
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The winners of the Civil Service Leadership Award, the peace process team at the Northern Ireland Office, were engaged in “the ultimate cross-cutting project“ according to the prime minister's security advisor at the Cabinet Office.
Robert Hannigan, speaking at Civil Service Live on Tuesday, accepted the award on behalf of absent NIO colleagues Nick Perry and Hilary Jackson, who he said were “stuck in a holding pattern above Heathrow“.
Hannigan dedicated the award to the “literally thousands“ of civil servants who had played a part in bringing peace to the province, particularly those native to Northern Ireland who had strived to uphold the values of civil service impartiality in the midst of violence.
The Cabinet Office official highlighted several innovations used to help resolve the political and social divisions in Northern Ireland, including the trial of community restorative justice schemes, designed to give local communities ownership of the criminal justice system.
Highlighting the “slightly wackier end of innovation“, Hannigan pointed to the recent introduction of a BBC Northern Ireland version of Sesame Street, designed to discourage sectarianism among young children.
“A civil servant four or five year ago thought it would be very good if we had a Northern Ireland version of Sesame Street that addressed sectarianism as a result of a study some years ago which showed that sectarianism started at a very young age.”
Robert Hannigan
“Everybody thought it was slightly crazy and would never happen, it would never get funding so I was delighted to turn on BBC Northern Ireland, completely by accident, to see the first episode.“ he said.
Hannigan said one of the key leadership lessons for civil servants was the importance of setting “top-level goals“ and “getting every member of the team to connect what they were doing every day to the top-level goal“.
Once members of a team believed in what they were doing, Hannigan reflected, “delivery becomes possible“.
Describing the 1998 Omagh bombing as the “lowest point“ of the peace process, he said the atrocity – which came just months after the Good Friday Agreement - had the “extraordinary effect“ of renewing the commitment of civil servants to the goal of securing lasting peace.
Runner-up in the leadership award, Kash Walayat of the People Directorate in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said his empowerment project had enabled schoolchildren, graduates and ethnic minority to realize their potential and highlighted his own background as a former YTS civil service trainee.