Sir Humphrey and the professors: what does Whitehall want from academics?

According to this UK survey, the majority of senior civil servants actively engage positively with academic outputs. However, it is also clear that a significant minority does not engage at all with academics and that many do so in fairly limited ways. Overview What do (civil service) policymakers want from academics? A seemingly simple question, and one to which you would already think we had a pretty good answer. Academia represents a very rich source of ideas, facts and theories about how public policies of all sorts might work (or not). Somewhere around 25,000 to 50,000 UK academics work on specifically policy-relevant areas – this represents a massive pool of knowledge that could help policymakers. Despite this obvious situation, actually very little is known precisely about how academia and policymakers interact. There are some research projects that have explored the issue, but these have mostly been case studies from which it is hard to generalise. We decided to ask the whole of the British Senior Civil Service (SCS) how they relate to academic research and expertise. We invited all 4,000+ members of the SCS to fill in our online survey. About 8% responded, with a representative gender balance and spread across nearly all policy areas, which is a reasonably good sample. Moreover the variations in responses suggest there was no obvious self-selection bias – it certainly wasn’t only those positive about academic outputs that responded. We asked a series of questions about how they access and use academic research and expertise and what impact this has on policymaking. Some of their answers were expected, and some were surprises that challenged standard assumptions. Overall, the impression from our survey is that the majority of senior civil servants actively engage positively with academic outputs. However, it is also clear that a significant minority does not engage at all with academics and that many do so in fairly limited ways. Unsurprisingly perhaps, senior civil servants had a predilection for “pre-digested” results of research and academic expertise. Their preference for “first contact” was briefings or reports (79%), or media reports of academic outputs in newspapers and weeklies (61%) or professional journals (55%)

No longer welcome: the EU academics in Britain told to ‘make arrangements to leave’

Some EU citizens living in Britain who decided to seek permanent residency after the Brexit vote are being told to make arrangements to leave. A number of these people are among the 31,000 EU academics currently working in UK universities. Colin Talbot says many are alarmed and some have already decided to leave – putting the expertise of Britain’s universities in serious jeopardy

Supply side deficiencies in our parties, parliament, and local government each contribute to our democratic malaise

Explanations for the decline in political disengagement often focus on what can be loosely termed the ‘demand side’, with the electorate seeming to foot the blame of not fully understanding the complexities and limitations of our democratic system, but is this right? Colin Talbot argues that more attention should be paid to the ‘supply side’, particularly the hollowing out of main political parties, our centralised parliamentary system, and the structural changes to local government since the abolition of the committee system

Universal Credit Crunch: “It’s the implementation, stupid.”

The National Audit Office (NAO) has come out today with a scathing report regarding the implementation of Universal Credit, the government’s flagship welfare reform programme that aims to consolidate thirty odd benefits into a single system. Colin Talbot has long been pointing to the problems, which he argues are largely systemic – to do with the nature of Whitehall and its ‘policy’ dominant culture

Making Public Value Management a guiding idea will be difficult within the UK’s dysfunctional hybrid governance system

Public value management was recently recommended as a solution for the UK’s large public management problems in a post on this blog. Colin Talbot agrees on public value management’s potential, but doubts that it can be promoted effectively within the UK’s current muddled governance of public services

The great Brexit crisis: we are in for an unprecedented shake up of the UK constitution, laws, conventions and politics

The UK seems to be rapidly heading for one of the most tangled and tumultuous political periods in modern history as Brexit nears its apogee, writes Colin Talbot. Whether you think we’re headed to Valhalla or Ragnarok, the constitution, law, conventions and politics are all set to be tested in ways rarely seen. In this blog, he presents a quick guide to some of the institutions that will be severely tested over the next days and weeks

From public administration to new public management: who killed the study of public administration in the UK?

Colin Talbot discusses the public administration ‘ecosystem’ that existed in the UK and was replicated in various forms across many commonwealth countries. He explains what has changed in recent years and emphasises the role of universities, which have largely abandoned the topic

Developing strategic managers for UK public services---a competing values and competences approach.

Abstract not available

A northern powerhouse, or an unwelcome imposition? experts respond to George Osborne’s Greater Manchester Mayor proposals

The Chancellor recently announced that in order to help make his “Northern Powerhouse” idea reality that the Greater Manchester City Region would see itself gain an elected, “London-style” Mayor, despite residents of Manchester City Council narrowly rejecting proposals for an Directly Elected Mayor for their local authority in 2011. Democratic Audit asked experts to respond to the news, with mixed results

Essential scrutiny or a national embarrassment? Experts respond to the Hansard Society’s report on Prime Minister’s Questions

The Hansard Society recently published research which showed the public’s disapproval of the shouting and braying that takes place at the weekly Prime Minister’s Question time. But is this merely a sign of a healthy democracy? We asked a number of experts on Parliament and democracy to respond to the research, and give their views as to whether this ritual is worth the trouble