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Tag: Speeches

  • Amber Rudd – 2018 Statement on UK / French Migration

    Below is the text of the statement made by Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons on 19 January 2018.

    The UK and France share a special relationship. The operation of juxtaposed controls, provided for by bilateral agreements, is an essential element of our border strategy. Since the juxtaposed controls were introduced, the number of asylum claims made in the UK has decreased dramatically. Before the controls were in place, asylum claims reached over 84,000 a year, three times higher than the 26,617 claims in 2016-17. The reduction in claims we have seen has significantly reduced the impact on public services and the UK taxpayer—with every reduction by 10,000 asylum claims saving the UK at least £70 million in costs.

    Juxtaposed controls play a hugely important role in protecting our national security and have significant economic value for both the UK and France—creating a smooth border and making trade more efficient. Having UK border controls based in France allows Border Force officers to check passengers and freight destined for the UK in France, ensuring we can take action against illegal migrants, those trying to smuggle people into the UK and criminals attempting to bring illegal goods into the country, before they reach British soil.

    Yesterday, we signed a supplementary agreement that demonstrates the UK and France’s long-term commitment to the future of the juxtaposed controls, recognising that they are in the common interest. This treaty with France—the treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of the French Republic concerning the reinforcement of co-operation for the co-ordinated management of their shared border, recognising the importance of cooperation at the juxtaposed controls—is established to sit alongside the Le Touquet and Canterbury treaties and will come into force on 1 February 2018. In securing the future of juxtaposed controls in this way we are able to strengthen operational co-operation, both in northern France and further upstream, to reduce the illegal flows into France. The treaty will not affect the operation of our juxtaposed controls, but demonstrates the UK and France’s long term commitment to their successful operation, and secures some of the mechanisms that we need to further strengthen our joint capabilities to prevent the formation of any new migrant camps.

    Building on the successful co-operation of the clearance and relocation of the migrant camp in Calais in 2016, the UK and France have now agreed a comprehensive “whole of route” approach to migration. The aim is to reduce the number of migrants making the dangerous and illegal journey to northern France and manage the pressure on our shared border from those who do travel. The elements are to:

    jointly work upstream in source and transit countries to discourage migrants who do not have any lawful basis for doing so from making the dangerous journey to northern France;

    invest in strengthening our shared border through investment in port security and infrastructure and further improving operational co-operation with France; and,​

    work to ensure that migrants who have travelled illegally to Northern France are able to quickly claim asylum in France so we can meet our international obligations.

    The UK has a shared interest in co-operating with France to manage migratory pressures. The support announced as part of the UK France Summit will help ensure migrant camps do not reform and that those willing to engage with the asylum system in France can claim asylum there. It also includes working with France to facilitate the return of migrants with no legal right to be in Europe to countries further upstream where they can be lawfully admitted.

    Our co-operation with France on migration and our shared border is a long-term commitment. Just as we invest in our borders around the rest of the UK, it is only right that we constantly monitor whether there is more we can be doing at the UK border controls in France and Belgium. Signing the treaty yesterday ensures a continuation of operational co-operation in a number of ways. It reaffirms both parties’ commitments to the operation of procedures for determining the member state responsible for an asylum claim under the Dublin III Regulation. It establishes a new co-ordination centre for operational co-operation at our shared border and strengthens co-operation on returns. It sets up a strategic dialogue and commits both countries to working towards joint practical measures in countries upstream, further demonstrating our commitment and leadership on this agenda. These practical measures will help to reduce flows to northern France and underpin our joint commitment to fight modern slavery and human trafficking.

    In addition, the UK and France recognise their humanitarian responsibilities towards unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children. In 2016, the UK transferred over 750 unaccompanied minors from France as part of our comprehensive support for the Calais camp clearance. We have also announced a number of further measures in respect of unaccompanied asylum-seeking and refugee children:

    France, Greece and Italy will now be able to refer unaccompanied children who arrived in Europe before 18 January 2018 to the UK under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. The Government had previously insisted on the previous eligibility date of 20 March 2016 to avoid establishing an open-ended relocation scheme from Europe, as this would increase the pull factor that puts children’s lives at risk. After extensive discussion with France, Greece and Italy, we have agreed to amend the eligibility date on an exceptional basis to ensure we can transfer the circa. 260 remaining unaccompanied children and meet our obligation under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016. Over 220 children are already here and we are fully committed to transferring the specified number of 480 children as soon as possible, in line with our published policy. The specified number of 480 under section 67 of the Immigration Act 2016 remains unchanged following the UK France Summit.

    The allocation of a £3.6 million development fund, as part of the UK’s overall £45.5 million funding commitment, which the UK intend to use to work with France to identify projects which support genuine claims through the Dublin process and ensure that those with no prospect of transferring to the UK are informed of their options.

    The strengthening of co-operation with France on the operation of the Dublin Regulation, including shorter timescales for decisions and transfers. These commitments apply whilst both the UK and France are participants in the Dublin Regulation.​

    The deployment of a UK Liaison Officer to France by 1 April 2018.

    The Government have not agreed to any new obligations to take more unaccompanied children from Europe. The commitments set out in the treaty and this Written Ministerial Statement will improve joint working with France and support the delivery of existing obligations.

    The deal that we have done yesterday recognises the importance of the juxtaposed controls for both the UK and France, and seals confirmation by President Macron to ensuring that we work together to operate them as efficiently as possible, and sets up a new phase of co-operation that will enable us to break the cycle of camps forming in northern France.

    We have a shared interest in co-operating with France on our whole of route approach to migration and the commitments set out at the UK France Summit, and in this Written Ministerial Statement further underline the value of our enduring strategic relationship.

  • Anne Milton – 2018 Statement on Presidents Club Charity

    Below is the text of the statement made by Anne Milton, the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills, in the House of Commons on 24 January 2018.

    Mr Speaker, I am sure you have seen the papers this morning. It has been reported that last Thursday, the Presidents Club—this is the first time I have heard of the club—[Interruption.] I am just saying, I had not heard of it before. This club hosted a charity dinner to raise money for causes such as Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. I understand from reports that there are allegations of inappropriate and lewd behaviour at this event.

    It is quite extraordinary to me that, in the 21st century, allegations of this kind are still emerging. Women have the right to feel safe wherever they work, and the type of behaviour alleged to have occurred is completely unacceptable. I have recently taken on ministerial responsibility for the board of the Department for Education and was previously Minister for Women. As hon. Members will know, David Meller has been a non-executive board member in the Department for Education and chair of the apprenticeship delivery board. The Government expect board members to adhere to the code of conduct for board members of public bodies, which clearly states that they should adhere to the seven principles of public life.

    David Meller is stepping down as a non-executive board member for the Department for Education and as a member of the apprenticeship delivery board. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is absolutely clear that that is the right thing to do. In case right hon. and hon. Members or you, Mr Speaker, are in any doubt, the event was absolutely nothing to do with the Department for Education.

  • John Manzoni – 2018 Speech on Civil Service Transformation

    Below is the text of the speech made by John Manzoni, the Chief Executive of the Civil Service, at the LSE on 24 January 2018.

    Welcome – and thank you to the LSE for giving me the opportunity to address this audience on a subject that concerns us all.

    The founding aim of this institution was to understand the causes of things and work for the betterment of society, so I could hardly be speaking in a more appropriate place.

    Let me start with a clear statement of intent: we aim to be the best Civil Service in the world. A brilliant Civil Service producing 21st-century solutions that make a real difference to the lives of the people we serve.

    We are already world-class, and rank very high among the world’s administrations. But to stay there we cannot afford to stand still.

    Advances in technology, fiscal pressures, changes in society – and in what people expect from their government in accessibility and convenience – have already provided the impetus for major change programmes across our Civil Service.

    But we have added exiting the European Union to those demands.

    And because what we’re already doing is vital for the long term, we have to find a way to integrate Brexit into that change.

    To me Brexit is an accelerator, a spur; not a distraction.

    We are already making fundamental – and necessary – changes to how we work, right across the organisation.

    The only way to handle Brexit as well, is to deepen and accelerate those changes.

    In other words, as Britain exits the EU, we have a moment to forge ahead. A moment when ambition, necessity and opportunity have converged.

    Last week, we faced just such a test in the collapse of Carillion. I will return to this later – and describe how the government’s response underlines the argument for transformation and at the same time as it shows how far we’ve already come.

    But we must go further, faster.

    We must seize the moment to push us on to greater efficiency and effectiveness.

    And the whole of the Civil Service has a role to play in ensuring we continue to innovate and improve our public services to rival any in the world.

    I’m not talking about cosmetic adjustments but profound, lasting, transformational change.

    This has three main components. We need to transform:

    how we work
    where we work, and
    the expertise we bring to bear on our work

    First:

    how we work

    We have to collaborate more – because citizens expect government to be joined up around what they, the customers, want.

    What they don’t want, when they engage with us, is to get on a bureaucratic merry-go-round, where the only options are going round in circles or bailing out.

    We must make full use of technology and data to modernise the design and delivery of services, and to inform more robust policies that meet people’s real needs.

    And we must be open to new, smarter ways of working, and doing things differently.

    Which merges with the second element:

    where we work

    Throughout the UK, we need modern, flexible workplaces that encourage us to work differently: sharing space with other departments, making it easier to work across boundaries, with a regional and local focus, and giving our people the most up-to date equipment for the job. Because ‘smart working’ is about maximising the potential of IT and more adaptable use of premises.

    And, lastly:

    change in the expertise we bring to bear on what we do – because, ultimately, a brilliant Civil Service is about people, what they bring to the job, and how we get the best from them

    Greater diversity and inclusion are an important part of this. We have set an ambition to be the most inclusive employer in the UK by 2020, which will help to give us the talented individuals we need – with all their contrasting experiences and insights – and the supportive environment in which to fulfil their potential.

    But it means something more.

    It is about developing professional excellence in key areas to complement and build on the world-class policy-making, legal and diplomatic skills we already have.

    And it’s about engineering a fundamental shift in the balance of experience and skills of civil servants; and doing this by diversifying the shape and trajectory of the careers of the next generation of Civil Service leaders, so they’re equipped to tackle the wider demands of the modern world.

    This last point is critical to the change we’re undertaking. Because a great prize is in view – one that holds out opportunities for our people to acquire new skills, build new careers, and be part of sustaining a world-leading Civil Service.

    We will win this prize by underpinning improvements with strategic changes in the three areas I’ve already identified.

    These deeper changes depend on:

    – embracing advances in technology and data
    – on reshaping the workforce around new career pathways and the core government functions, to make us as effective in execution, services and procurement as we are in policy-making; and
    – on working smarter for greater efficiency and effectiveness; and
    – finally, on a more inclusive and delivery-focused approach to leadership

    We’ve made significant progress in adopting new technology. We’re plugging in digital government, from back-office to frontline services.

    We’re making fundamental changes through innovative services such as Universal Credit and the Personal Tax Account, where the end-to-end process of delivery is being transformed, as well as the interface with the customer. Or the biggest courts reform programme in the world, introducing virtual hearings and digitising the entire end-to-end process.

    In all of these cases, changes beneath the surface show themselves in changes to physical locations: fewer, more efficient courtrooms, fewer tax offices, and fewer, bigger, service centres hosting the back offices.

    Each will bring lasting and profound change to the Civil Service and how we interact with citizens. Each is a multi-year, multi-million pound change programme, absorbing huge management effort and focus.

    On a smaller scale, but just as visible and important, are the many examples of technology-driven change improving how users experience government services:

    – DVLA has moved many of its services online – I expect many of you here today have seen the benefit
    – the Passport Office aims to have 90% of all passport renewals fully digital by 2020
    – if you want to, you can now get a divorce online, or, curiously, find out how to import a ferret

    In fact, by 2020 we expect nearly 100 government services to be available digitally.

    At the same time, we anticipate that many of our services will begin to benefit from the huge potential of robotics – or, more accurately, robotic process automation (RPA). In speed and accuracy of response, RPA could transform the experience of citizens registering for services, or applying for grants or benefits.

    For civil servants, too, process automation is something to embrace rather than fear. It’ll create more time to spend on customer-facing work; enhancing jobs by making it easier to navigate and work with data. We already see this in the way technology enables DWP work coaches in Jobcentres to help their clients.

    HMRC is at the forefront of the RPA revolution. It has already automated its system for registering new employers. And we have set up a Centre of Excellence to accelerate the take-up of RPA across government. There’s ground to make up on other clerically intensive industries. But we can learn from their experience and from local government, and we will accelerate our efforts.

    Increasingly, these digital services rely on access to data.

    Government has always had great stores of information.

    Now we need to focus on better use of this data to continuously improve the services we provide, and spend less time developing those that ultimately don’t work. We need to target those who need our services more specifically, and to tailor those services more accurately, instead of asking citizens for the same information multiple times.

    There’s a great deal to do, and there are genuine sensitivities to the free flow of data across our boundaries. Citizens will rightly demand that we use their data responsibly, safely, and only for the public good, never for profit. And that we store it securely and don’t expose them to risk.

    The data access and sharing provisions of the 2017 Digital Economy Act will help us do this while retaining public trust in how we handle their information when there is clear public need or benefit.

    We recently announced the creation of the Geospatial Commission. This will allow us to exploit the huge and diverse data we hold on geography and location, which is currently handled by more than 70 disparate bodies.

    It will establish a set of common standards to make the data easier to find, access and link up with other data sets – fuelling new insights and innovation.

    Making this information more easily available and usable is potentially worth more than £10 billion per annum – boosting the UK economy and generating new jobs.

    This is just the start of the data journey. We have many other initiatives across government to drive better use of data, and I’m excited to see how we can accelerate them.

    To make the most of the opportunities we are upping our skill levels across the Civil Service.

    The Digital Academy is training up to 3,000 civil servants a year in the skills they need (in data and technology as well as digital) to transform the way government designs services with users’ interests at their heart. And it’s expanding nationwide.

    Our Data Science Campus in Newport, now a year old, will eventually produce up to 500 qualified data analysts for government.

    The campus is a state of the art facility that will help us to attract and nurture the brightest talents to work on some of government’s most complex issues.

    When I visited the campus last year, I met a wonderfully diverse group of apprentices; of different experiences and ages, from different parts of the country – all excited to push the boundaries of data measurement and application.

    And, before I move on, I have to say I sense that the new status of data, and of those working with it, is mobilising a shift in the centre of gravity for analysis in Whitehall.

    With data analysis and its supporting technologies increasingly a factor in new digital services, analysis is gradually moving from being a preserve of policy to powering decisions made in the moment by civil servants on the front line. The upshot of this is not only greater efficiency, but a more personalised experience for citizens.

    The second area of major change we are undertaking is in the shape of the workforce.

    The Civil Service is brilliant at policy. The best in the world,according to the first International Civil Service Effectiveness Index.

    And there’s a good reason for this: everything in the way we organise ourselves as a workforce: our systems and structures – our career paths – how we reward people – the skills and experience we value – the rationale for promotions, all are geared to nurturing policy experts.

    This is a vital strength. It has served the Civil Service well for at least a decade. But to meet the challenges ahead, we need something more – and that is deeper experience in delivery – in particular commercial, technical and project execution skills.

    This is increasingly clear as we tackle the challenge of exiting the EU, for which we must design new UK policies and institutions, and build new systems to execute them.

    To achieve this transformation means breaking the mould of the traditional Civil Service career and casting a new one. Because experience matters; and it requires staying in one job long enough to gain that experience, rather than moving from job to job at the rate some of our our current structures encourage.

    In a few years’ time, my vision is that the leadership of the Civil Service will have a blend of skills and experiences, supplementing the predominant policy or economics background of today with delivery experience gained within the organisation.

    This is perfectly achievable – we can offer fabulous experience to delivery-orientated young people across a vast range of challenging projects.

    Already, all the Government Functions are building their own career paths, and the graduate Fast Stream offers opportunities in 15 different schemes for new and existing civil servants: from Digital, Data & Technology, to Project Delivery and Commercial.

    We are delving deep into the existing structures to change them – changing career paths; what we value; how we remunerate; how and why people progress. The aim is to create a new cadre of Civil Service leadership, blending the strengths we already have – and must preserve and protect – with what we need to add – which is about experience-based delivery capability.

    This is what I mean by breaking the mould and ‘reshaping’ the workforce – producing civil servants, leaders and managers of judgement – the sort of judgement that comes from deep experience. Those who, in a procurement, say, use accumulated, wider experience and insight to select the best option rather than reflexively choosing the cheapest – they won’t necessarily be the same.

    There is growing evidence of this ‘reshaping’ in action.

    We’re resetting our relationship with IT suppliers so that we can bring inside the expertise we previously used to have to contract out. And we’re disentangling ourselves from expensive, inflexible contracts that tie us in for the long term.

    HMRC has successfully exited the Aspire IT contract, which ended on 30 June last year and cost £10 billion. Reshaping this contract is creating more opportunities for UK-based SMEs, the kind of firms that fuel growth at the heart of our economy. HMRC is now working with a more diverse range of suppliers to deliver a modern, agile IT capability that is on target to save around £200 million a year by 2021 – a saving of 24%, on a like-for-like basis.

    We have brought to bear more sector-specific expertise in property deals, such as the renegotiation of 900 Jobcentre leases; and in improving major project management, through initiatives like the Major Projects Leadership Academy, which has trained more than 300 senior project leaders and seen experts in project delivery and finance deployed to major capital projects, such as the Thames Tideway Tunnel, Crossrail and HS2.

    We’re adopting the best private sector practice to collect debt, which has added several hundred million pounds of debt repayments in the last financial year – debt that would otherwise have been left uncollected.

    And while we’ve already created one of the biggest shared services centres in Europe, we are going even further: implementing a new, cross-government strategy for shared services that will touch all departments, and make use of best practice from all industries. This approach will unlock hundreds of millions in savings for government and drive efficiency and effectiveness across Whitehall.

    None of these would be possible without deep expertise. We will bring in external know-how as necessary – but the emphasis is on developing our own talent in a sustainable way.

    Take the Commercial Function.

    Government needs the right capabilities to manage every aspect of commercial arrangements with third parties, who account for around half of central Government’s service delivery capability. We spend around £45 billion each year on commercial contracts.

    The collapse of Carillion last week shone a hard light on the importance of building strong functions. And the way we reacted showed what such functions, operating as flexible cross-government professional networks, can achieve.

    Obviously, the last thing we want to see is a major supplier going into liquidation. In the fullness of time, inquiries will look at how it happened and the lessons we should take from it.

    Our first priority was to maintain key public services. This was only possible by utilising the cross-government capability we have built up in the commercial function. If this had happened two years ago, we would not have had the expertise or cross government structure to manage it.

    But of course it has opened up broader questions:

    – whether we were watching closely enough
    – why we awarded contracts after the profits warning, and
    – how the government should contract with the private sector for the provision of public services

    We were watching – as we do with all suppliers – and the response of officials to the profits warning in July 2017 was immediate. Commercial teams across government were alerted, professional advisers retained, and a special project team set up.

    We remained in regular contact with the company throughout this period, and were closely tracking the company’s efforts to restructure.

    I should say that the vast majority of government service contracts were profitable for the company and we were ensuring that nothing the government did during this period exacerbated the difficulties it faced.

    In such a situation, any company is of course more watched and more sensitive than in normal circumstances. So the government has a balance to find: it must be careful, on the one hand, not to award contracts if we feel the company cannot fulfil its obligations; but, on the other, it must not precipitate problems by signalling to the market that the company is unfit to continue to tender for government business.

    Of course, following a profits warning, as happened in this case, we undertook additional due diligence – including asking for external views as to the capacity of the firm to undertake new work.

    The majority of the large contracts are let to joint ventures, primarily to mitigate the risk of single point failure. And we also revisited those arrangements to ensure that all parties were comfortable with the joint liability arrangements within the joint ventures.

    I am pleased to say that in the majority of cases so far the joint venture partner has stepped in exactly as provided for, to ensure the continuity of the service and employment.

    Of course, this case raises the question of how government should use the private sector in the delivery of public services.

    First, let me say again that the whole basis of building – in this case – commercial capability inside government via the commercial function is to enable us to have intelligent dialogue and to structure intelligent relationships with the private sector. Without it, we are left relying on transactional, price-based relationships which can be sub-optimal for both parties in the long run.

    And some of those contracts still exist today, from before we began rebuilding our commercial skills. Here we should be open to a discussion with industry about how best to proceed.

    We want both to ensure good value for the taxpayer and to have a healthy, profitable, and diverse private sector, competing for government business. Where that balance isn’t working well, we need to sit down and discuss it. For that to happen, we need sufficient expertise and skills inside government .

    I believe that the right answer is a more sophisticated relationship that puts risk in the place where it can be managed best and provides sufficient margins, commensurate with the risk, to ensure value for the taxpayer and a healthy, competitive market.

    That should be within our grasp.

    And that is precisely because over the last two years we have made real progress in strengthening our commercial capability.

    In 2016 we launched a rigorous Assessment and Development Centre to assess the skills and capabilities of individuals against commercial professional standards and to set out the expertise they need to progress in their careers. The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS) and the International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM) have both endorsed our People Standards for developing and recruiting experienced and commercially astute professionals.

    Within the next week or so, the centre will have assessed 1,000 people for development purposes, a third of them existing civil servants. These assessments have real teeth: if you’re good, we’ll give you the support you need to grow – coaching, secondments, stretching assignments. If you’re not as suited, we’ll help find you something for which you are.

    And having piloted the assessment centre across the big central departments, we’re now rolling it out to Arms Length delivery bodies, too.

    As well as assessing commercial staff in their current roles, we’ve used the assessment centre as part of a recruitment drive. This has filled over 110 senior commercial roles across government in under two years.

    Our third strategic transformation goal is to work ‘smarter’ for greater efficiency and effectiveness

    It’s pointless having the best people, with excellent skills and relevant experience if we don’t put them in environments where they can flourish and make the best use of their talents. So smarter working must start with modern, flexible workplaces, with up-to-date facilities and technology, in the right places and focused on delivery and outcomes.

    We are creating around 20 strategic hubs in major cities across the UK, spreading operational centres of government out from Whitehall. Those already announced are in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, London’s Canary Wharf, Cardiff, Croydon, Edinburgh, Leeds, Liverpool and Stratford in east London.

    Last month we broke ground on on our latest hub in Cardiff city centre; where we will house more than 4,000 public servants by 2020. This brand-new, city centre building will not only save millions of pounds in running costs, but will also see the UK Government have a consolidated presence in Wales, encouraging collaboration and joined-up working.

    By 2020, these ten hubs will accommodate around 35,000 civil servants; and, by 2023, our plans will have reduced the number of government buildings from around 800 to just 200.

    Hubs allow us to locate teams from different departments in the same offices – sharing expertise, bringing people together from different professions and disciplines, encouraging collaboration and flexibility.

    In moves enabled by Universal Credit, DWP is already delivering more efficient services by concentrating resources in service centres, co-locating with other departments and local government, and in 6 regional corporate hubs.

    And by 2021 HMRC will set up 13 regional centres as part of transforming itself into a smaller, more collaborative, better equipped and more highly skilled operation for the digital age. These modern centres will replace the department’s ageing network of 140 offices, which are expensive to run and create isolated pockets, doing a narrow range of work.

    Changes of this sort are generating new opportunities for civil servants. And they’re changing how we think about work – raising our sights above departmental boundaries, and enabling more collaborative behaviour.

    Taken together, these are the instruments of greater efficiency and effectiveness – of greater productivity.

    Which brings me to the last area of strategic transformation – in leadership.

    All over the country, civil servants at every level are doing brilliant work; getting on with the job of adapting to changes in how, where and when we work; unwaveringly focused on the best outcomes for citizens.

    As we execute the changes I’ve described, the requirements of Civil Service Leadership are increasing.

    Change on this scale doesn’t just happen.

    And the demands on our workforce are increasing – owing to the legitimate expectations of citizens in an increasingly digital age, but also as we embrace the substantial task of Exiting the European Union.

    Not only are we trying to fix the aircraft in mid-flight, we’re re-engineering it too, while it’s flying faster and faster.

    And that takes leadership.

    Leaders who know enough about how to set a project for success, or where commercial exposure may lie, or what a digital sprint to build a new service in an agile way looks like – as well as knowing the policy case for that service.

    Policy expertise is not enough.

    We need leaders with empathy, who can manage their teams through transformation and encourage continuous improvement. Leaders with broader experience, who are effective in a complex, multidisciplinary world, who lead with their hearts and their guts, as well as their heads, who see the big picture.

    Leaders whose instincts – developed through experience – are collaborative; who are used to working across boundaries, confident beyond their own professional area, and inspire and empower their teams – building on the commitments in our Leadership Statement.

    The new Civil Service Leadership Academy embodies this ambition. It will strengthen the ability of leaders from more diverse backgrounds – initially at senior level, but later through programmes open to all grades.

    It is setting out to do this in quite a new way, combining what is known about leadership and learning with practical insight from first-hand experience.

    With a ‘leaders teaching leaders’ approach, we will use immersive case studies to learn from real projects, and examples of governance both good and bad, from the very people who were involved in them. And to produce leaders who connect, the academy will teach the human and emotional lessons – as well as the operational ones – of what’s worked and what hasn’t.

    We launched the Leadership Academy in October.

    Our plan is to deepen and strengthen the learning it offers; to build an institution that sits at the heart of the Civil Service that embodies and promotes our deeply held values; the place where knowledge is held and experience shared, and that becomes the benchmark for leadership development.

    So we are developing a new model of leadership for the Civil Service. One that builds on the strengths we have, adding depth of experience in execution, technology and commercial, and one that, importantly, is more diverse than today.

    Conclusion

    So, to conclude, we have a moment, a window of opportunity to accelerate the changes we are making to the Civil Service, using developments in society and technology to propel a transformation in every aspect of the organisation – and the urgency of exiting from the EU to spur us to more rapid action.

    It means changing our mindset, how we think about our careers, how we work together and design and deliver services in user-centred ways.

    We must seize that opportunity. Some of the changes I’ve mentioned are longer term, and won’t be visible immediately. Others we can see already contributing to a more efficient and effective Civil Service.

    But we must pursue both short and long changes with equal vigour and resolution. We’ve got the shape; we’ve got the structure – built around a core of essential functions – and we know our destination. And we have the triple imperatives of Brexit, fiscal constraint and citizens’ increasing expectations to force the pace.

    If I may, for a moment, directly address my fellow civil servants: seeing what you do every day – I know we are not standing still.

    We are already one of the best public service organisations in the world. And we should have faith in our ability to be even better. The times demand it. A Civil Service without belief in itself is inevitably a less effective one.

    Despite the pressures I see no sign of such negativity.

    Equally I see no complacency. We are changing where we must; adding strength where we’re already strong; and getting on with the job of implementing government policy.

    The challenge of Brexit is very substantial.

    We have all seen and heard the headlines in the media. But behind those headlines we have thousands of civil servants working to prepare for and then implement what comes out of the negotiations.

    This task would overwhelm a lesser organisation. But it will not overwhelm the UK Civil Service.

    We are already undertaking significant transformation in many dimensions, and we will now accelerate those changes to encompass our Brexit work – working together, innovating and always looking to improve so that we can face the future with confidence, and continue to build a Civil Service that the whole country can be proud of.

    Thank you for listening.

  • Anne Milton – 2018 Speech at Bett Show

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anne Milton, the Minister of State for Apprenticeships and Skills, at the Bett show in London on 24 January 2018.

    Welcome. It is fantastic to join you all for this conference marking both the opening of Bett 2018, and the closing of the Education World Forum (EWF).

    I’m sorry that our new Secretary of State couldn’t make it but some of you will hopefully have heard his speech at the EWF earlier this week on preparing students for success in our fast-changing world – for what has been called the fourth Industrial Revolution.

    Our lives are becoming inextricably linked with technology. From the health and fitness trackers or smartwatches that many of you are probably wearing to some of the amazing innovations on display here today.

    And yet – in 2017, Lloyds Bank reported that 11.5 million people in the UK lacked basic digital skills, and the Office for National Statistics estimated 9% of people had never used the internet.

    Many of our best and brightest companies are telling us that they are struggling to recruit the specialist digital talent they need.

    I want to focus on what we are doing at every stage in education to develop the digital skills we need to help us address these challenges.

    Starting in schools. We recognise that EdTech can play a vital role – as a tool for teachers in our schools, colleges and Universities. And as a study in itself for students.

    Technology should reduce teacher workload. It should be another way of making education more accessible and inclusive. It should allow educators and students’ access to share content through cloud based services.

    The UK is at the forefront of Edtech – and many great British companies are represented here today. The UK is a global EdTech hub at the forefront of technological developments and discoveries; constantly developing innovative new learning methods and technology. Half of Europe’s fastest-growing education technology companies are based in the UK, and there are more than 1,000 EdTech ventures spread across the UK, with 200 in London alone.

    At the same time technology can keep people awake at night! Many feel they lack the budget or the expertise to use it.

    So what can government do?

    Proper implementation is key; as with any intervention, the most successful changes are led locally with the sector to make sure you have the information and skills you need to make the right decisions for you and your institution. We want to support classrooms and institutions up and down the country to harness its potential effectively. But connection is critical so we announced in the autumn budget that children from 100 schools would be the first to benefit from the local full fibre programme, using poorly serviced schools as a marker for where to focus expansion of the national full-fibre network.

    90% of new jobs require digital skills, so children need to grow up as more than just digital consumers but practitioners and creators.

    Also, we announced in the Autumn Budget that we would invest £84 million of new funding over the next five years to improve the teaching of computing and drive up participation in computer science qualifications, particularly amongst girls.

    This includes increasing the expertise of up to 8,000 existing computer science teachers and a new National Centre for Computing Education.

    This additional investment builds on the curriculum reforms we have already made. This is a step-change from the previous approach, and includes challenging new content such as coding and algorithms, providing students with the basic building blocks they need to move on to successful further study or work.

    We are currently implementing major systemic reforms in vocational education. Improving our digital skills sits at the heart of these reforms – already exciting plenty of interest and enthusiasm from students and employers alike.

    For example, we have introduced new innovative digital degree apprenticeships which were designed by employers and universities working in partnership to create relevant, high quality curricula to provide the much needed skills that industry needs.

    July 2017 saw the first degree apprentices’ graduate, with 11 gaining a BSc (honours) in Digital and Technology Solutions.

    We also have in place a suite of new apprenticeship standards to address employers’ digital skill needs at intermediate and technician levels.

    Our technical education reforms will see the creation of 15 prestigious technical routes that encompass all employment-based and college-based training.

    New T level programmes will sit within these routes and will provide a genuine technical option, equal in esteem to A levels. They will give young people a path to skilled employment or higher level technical study.

    There will be a specialist digital route, and in November we announced the membership of our industry panels who are already working to define the knowledge, skills and behaviours that individuals require for employment; we’ve lined up a strong mix of individuals from across the sector, with input from Fujitsu, IBM and Accenture. Government will also work with industry professionals to ensure relevant digital content is included in all routes.

    Our commitment to reforming technical education is underlined through our investment in this area. In last year’s Spring Budget, we allocated an additional £500 million per year for T levels, which will help us to match the excellence of our world-leading higher education system.

    But this is a fast moving sector so apprenticeships and T levels will need dynamic content that constantly keeps up with changes and innovation.

    Whilst our global reputation for digital technology is richly deserved, we will work hard to keep up.

    So we are determined that the new specialist institutions will play an essential role in training the digital leaders of tomorrow.

    Ada is one. A new specialist further education college that works with industry to design and deliver an education that empowers all students, women, those from low-income backgrounds – to progress into highly skilled digital roles.

    The college opened its 6th form in September 2016 and took its first apprentices in May 2017. Over its first five years Ada is aiming to train up to 5,000 students in higher level skills for a wide range of digital careers, such as software and database developers, user experience designers and tech entrepreneurs.

    The target is that 50% of these students will be women and 50% will be from low-income households by 2021. In December, we launched a competition for areas across England to bid into a £170m fund to establish a network of 10 to 15 prestigious Institutes of Technology. They will be a new type of institution involving FE providers, HE providers and employers working together.

    The Institute of Coding is an initiative to establish an institute to serve as a national focus for improving digital skills provision at levels 6 and 7. In the Autumn Statement 2015 the Government announced a new £20 million fund to improve higher level digital skills. The fund will establish joint collaborations between universities and businesses and focus on computer science and digital skills in related disciplines that employers need. The winners will be announced shortly.

    But we need to make sure that the enthusiasm our students have for digital skills and learning is translated beyond the classroom and into the workplace.

    We aim to tackle some of the misconceptions around jobs in the digital sector by improving the quality of careers advice our young people receive.

    We published a new careers strategy in December 2017, which included proposals to increasing young people’s contact with employers, especially in relation to STEM subjects – allowing them to see how enjoyable and fulfilling these jobs can be first hand.

    The careers strategy needs to be more than a document. We need to dramatically expand, the breadth and effectiveness of current careers provision in schools and colleges on all subjects but specifically STEM. We have produced a ‘what works’ and a toolkit for use in schools and colleges.

    Digital exclusion is a huge challenge. Those 11.5 million people without basic digital skills need to get them. This is why I am delighted to confirm that we will introduce full funding for basic digital training for adults from 2020.

    Adults will have the opportunity to undertake improved digital courses based on new national standards. This will set out the skills and capabilities people need to get on in life and work. We will consult on these new standards in the autumn.

    Technology is also key to distant learning for those whose geographical location makes it difficult or for those for whom learning digitally is more intuitive.

    In the Autumn Budget, we announced that will invest £30 million to test the use of AI and innovative EdTech in online digital skills courses so that adult learners can benefit from this emerging technology, wherever they are in the country.

    This Government wants everyone to get the digital skills they need.

    The country needs them to have those skills. Our economy depends on it. We can’t do this alone so your support, your input is vital.

    The Digital Skills Partnership Board is a way of feeding that information to us. But DFE officials will be here at the conference all week.

    We need to hear your ideas, answer your questions so we can make this happen.

  • Earl Howe – 2018 Statement on the Devonport Collection

    Below is the text of the statement made by Earl Howe in the House of Lords on 22 January 2018.

    I have today laid before Parliament a Ministry of Defence Departmental Minute describing a gifting package which the Department intend to make to the National Museum of the Royal Navy.

    Devonport Dockyard had a museum known as the Adelaide Gallery in the first half of the 1800s comprising a number of artefacts including figureheads and items such as flags from ships that served at Trafalgar. Sadly a fire in 1840 destroyed the majority of the collection. However, with the help of volunteers the museum was opened, within the Naval Base estate, in the disused Old Admiralty Fire Station in April 1969. Since opening, the “Devonport collection” has been enhanced by a group of willing volunteers who have accumulated artefacts of both local and national significance.

    The current collection is made up of over 100,000 artefacts spanning the period 1588 to the present day. The collection includes naval stores, uniforms, medals, badges, personal kit and also model ships. It also includes silver, china and kitchenware, weights and measures as well as larger items such as figureheads. The total cost of the proposed gift is estimated at approximately £650,000.

    The expansion of the collection is such that artefacts are now displayed in eight galleries across three buildings and is managed by a group of over 30 dedicated volunteers and uniformed staff. Currently, members of the public can only visit the collection by appointment.

    Given the changes to the Naval Base site and the wider area under the Plymouth and south-west peninsula city deal and the complexities associated with supporting such an extensive collection of historical material, I propose the gifting of the Devonport collection to the National Museum of the Royal Navy in order that it can be suitably conserved and more widely displayed in Plymouth for current and future generations allowing greater access to the public.

    The Departmental Minute, which I have today laid before Parliament, describes a gifting package to the National Museum of the Royal Navy that will comprise a number of historical items which need the continued support of the professional services that the Museum can provide.

    Gifting is expected to be undertaken as soon as possible after the completion of the Departmental Minute process.

  • David Lidington – 2018 Statement on Carillion

    Below is the text of the statement made by David Lidington, the Minister for the Cabinet Office, in the House of Commons on 23 January 2018.

    On Monday 15 January 2018 I notified the House of the steps taken by the Government in regards to the compulsory liquidation of Carillion plc.

    Throughout this unfolding situation the Government have prioritised the continued delivery of public services. Taxpayers should not, and will not, bail out a private sector company for private sector losses or allow rewards for failure.

    The failure of this company has understandably caused concern for many people over their jobs, their pensions and their local services. The court has appointed an official receiver from the Insolvency Service who has taken control of the delivery of public services contracts and we are supporting them to do so. We will support the official receiver to provide these services until a suitable alternative is found, either through another contractor or through in-house provision.

    I would like to provide further reassurance that all employees working on public services should continue to turn up to work, as they have been doing since the announcement of the liquidation, confident in the knowledge that they will be paid for the work they are providing.

    In order to safeguard our public services, we have been implementing contingency plans that have been developed since July 2017. Since I last updated the House, there has been no significant disruption to service delivery in schools, hospitals, prisons, defence and other public services as staff have continued to provide services. We have been engaging with all devolved Administrations with exposure to Carillion to ensure that robust contingency plans are being implemented.

    A number of Carillion’s joint venture partners such as Kier, Eiffage, Balfour Beatty, KBR, Amey and Galliford Try have committed to stepping into the respective public sector contracts to ensure continuity of these vital services. Public sector construction sites have been secured and construction will begin following the appointment of a new contractor. I would like to express my thanks to all those who have worked hard to ensure the continuity of public services.

    Over 90% of Carillion’s private sector facilities management service customers have indicated that they will provide funding for the official receiver to maintain interim services while new suppliers can be identified to deliver these, ensuring the retention and employment of staff on these contracts. In addition, we are making sure the usual level of support from Government to affected employees is available from Jobcentre Plus, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Pension Protection Fund (PPF), HMRC and also dedicated websites from the Insolvency Service.​

    At present, seven Carillon pensions schemes, covering 6,000 members, have moved to the pensions protection fund assessment period, this occurs automatically when all the sponsoring employers become insolvent. The remaining 21,000 members are in schemes which have at least one sponsor not in insolvency, and are therefore not in the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

    Where pensions have moved into the PPF, the PPF is making sure current pensioners continue to receive their pensions at 100% of their usual rate, and are assessing the eligibility of Carillion’s pension schemes to enter the PPF to protect current employees’ future pensions. We have also set up a special additional helpline with the Pensions Advisory Service for members of Carillion’s pension schemes (0800 7561012). We have responded to over 500 calls to the Pensions Advisory Service line since it opened last week.

    The Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has worked with the Education and Skills Funding Agency to ensure funding is available to support former Carillion apprentices. Over 1,400 apprentices have been contacted and the CITB is offering every former Carillion apprentice a face-to-face session with CITB Apprenticeships to find out their individual learning needs. To date, the CITB have matched 400 Carillion apprentices to new employers, and they continue to assess the industry offers they have received to find placements for the remaining Carillion apprentices.

    HMRC will provide practical advice and guidance to affected businesses in Carillion’s supply chain through its business payment support service (BPSS). The BPSS connects businesses with HMRC staff who can offer practical help and advice on a wide range of tax problems, providing a fast and sympathetic route to agreeing the best way forward and addressing immediate concerns with practical solutions. HMRC has also offered to provide affected families with cash support through the tax credit system and has published details on how to contact them to arrange.

    The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Greg Clark), the Economic Secretary to the Treasury (John Glen) and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Andrew Griffiths) met with several banks on 17 January 2018 to seek assurances that they will support small businesses affected by Carillion’s liquidation. Lenders are contacting customers and, where appropriate, are putting in place emergency measures, including overdraft extensions, payment holidays and fee waivers to ensure those facing short-term issues can be helped to stay on track. Three lenders have made a fund of £225 million available to support small businesses exposed to Carillion’s liquidation. Furthermore, the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has set up a taskforce to monitor and advise on mitigating the impacts of Carillion’s liquidation on construction firms, particularly SMEs and those working in the sector. He chaired the first meeting of the taskforce on 18 January 2018 and will be holding a further series of meetings with stakeholders in the coming weeks.

    The official receiver has also taken immediate action to stop severance and bonus payments to former directors. The Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has written to the Insolvency Service and the official receiver asking that the statutory investigation into the conduct of Carillion’s directors is fast-tracked ​and extended in scope to include previous directors. He has also asked the Financial Reporting Council to conduct an investigation into the preparation of Carillion’s accounts past and present, as well as the company’s auditors.

    Officials in my Department have been in touch with various Members’ offices last week following their queries through the dedicated helplines we set up. I shall be holding drop-in sessions for Members to meet with Cabinet Office Ministers and relevant officials to answer any further queries. Alongside ministerial colleagues, I will keep the House updated on this ongoing situation.

  • Matt Hancock – 2018 Speech at Charity Commission

    Matt Hancock

    Below is the text of the speech made by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, at the Charity Commission on 23 January 2018.

    It is wonderful to have had The Duke of Cambridge supporting this event today. He has been a superb ambassador for the sector, and his passion for the welfare of our armed forces, for young people and for the environment has given a huge boost to charities in the UK.

    I would also like to offer my appreciation for everything that William Shawcross has done in his time as Chair.

    It can be a difficult job, which involves making some courageous judgements. And William, you have certainly not shirked from making those.

    William, you have greatly improved the standing of the Commission, preserved the independence of the sector and laid the foundations for the growth in strength and size which we will see for years to come.

    You have been unafraid to identify the big challenges and then have acted to tackle them, bringing the sector with you. I have no doubt that British charities under your leadership are a bigger force for good than ever before.

    I’m absolutely thrilled to be leading DCMS. The Department does many things but basically it’s the Department for the Things That Make Life Worth Living.

    This means the arts, culture, sport, and also the ties that bind us in our communities; the charities, faith groups and neighbourhood projects that hold our society together.

    It’s also the Department for Digital and for me this is equally crucial to the things that make life worth living. Tech isn’t just transforming the economy.

    It’s changing how communities work and opening up new opportunities for our civil society to become yet more effective.

    The same goes for innovations in finance – the new world of social impact investment, bringing new approaches and new forms of finance to tackle social problems.

    We’re also seeing innovations in policy which push power and responsibility away from Whitehall and towards local communities, especially local mayors.

    So I’m starting this job with a huge sense of possibility. I know from my five years as a minister across many departments that a charity is often better equipped to tackle a social problem than the government.

    And I think there’s a huge amount more we can do in finding opportunities for government, civil society and business to work together.

    The Charity Commission deserves major credit for developing this sense of possibility, despite tough times.

    Six years ago the National Audit Office published a pretty tough review of your work and the then chair of the Public Accounts Committee questioned whether the Commission should be thrown on the bonfire.

    Well, phoenix-like, under William’s leadership, you have risen – last year the NAO hailed ‘significant progress’, which coming from them is like a Nobel Prize.

    I want to congratulate you for everything that you are doing to maintain the reputation, the independence and the success of the sector.

    I also want to welcome the work of the Fundraising Regulator. Charities depend on public trust and it is right we challenge those few charities whose bad behaviour endangers the reputation of all.

    The Fundraising Regulator is also working with other partners to develop simple guidance for small charities on the new GDPR data protection requirements, which I know some of you have questions about.

    I believe we are on the path towards a more transparent charity sector with higher standards of integrity. And this is important. Because I see an opportunity for the sector to make a major step up in its role.

    These improvements to governance and funding must continue. Because I want us to focus on our time ahead as an opportunity to work together and improve people’s lives.

    Whether in public service or service through charities, that is what it’s all about. I believe to my core in the value of public service and the deep integrity of dedicating your working life to improve the lives of others.

    This is what we do in government, both politicians and civil servants. And it’s what you do in the charitable sector, directly addressing some of the gravest challenges to the human condition and lifting the lives of people across the country and the world. I want this to be the focus of our work together.

    I commend those charities that are working to fix problems and responding to need, usually on a small, local scale.

    I also commend the charities which are playing a role in preventing social problems and not just fixing them.

    This might be through setting the framework for action by other charities, the public sector and businesses. Or it could be bringing together everyone involved on an issue to coordinate their work, pool finance and agree common goals.

    All charities that operate on the ground make a valuable contribution. Often the life-blood of our communities, I pledge today that I will always fight to protect and promote you. But I also want to see charities playing a strategic role in our social policy and practice.

    Likewise, I want the Charity Commission not just to be known for challenging badly operating charities, as important as this is, but for actively supporting all charities to be the best that they can be.

    My brilliant colleague Tracey Crouch has recently been appointed ministerial lead on loneliness and social isolation.

    This is one of the most pressing social issues of our time, with research showing that nine million people say they always or often feel lonely.

    I know that charities and civil society will play a crucial part in our cross-government strategy on loneliness. We are looking forward to working with you to develop and implement it.

    Tracey also recently announced a review of civil society in the UK, with the objective of publishing a government strategy later this year.

    We both see this as a major opportunity to set a new direction for UK civil society and to put charities centre-stage in local communities and public services.

    This is of course not entirely new. Britain has a unique tradition of philanthropy and of social innovations which began through charitable activity.

    Everything from hospitals and hospices to insurance and pensions have their roots in the independent initiative of individuals and communities, developing mutual solutions to the challenges of the time.

    In 1948, William Beveridge followed his famous report on a new health and welfare system with another report called Voluntary Action. He saw the work of charities as vital to a strong and free society.

    I could not agree more and I very much intend to maintain that tradition.

    I’m looking forward to working with all of you to help our nation’s incredible charities to strengthen and grow.

    I pledge that I will be by your side all the way.

    Thank you very much.

  • Nick Gibb – 2018 Speech at Education World Forum

    Below is the text of the speech made by Nick Gibb, the Minister of State for School Standards, at the Education World Forum on 23 January 2018.

    How can and should policy be developed to ensure education equity? A knowledge-rich curriculum should be at the heart of all schools. We believe that is key to ensuring education equity. Endowing pupils with knowledge of ‘the best that has been thought and said’ and preparing pupils to compete in an ever more competitive jobs market is the core purpose of schooling.

    And ensuring that pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds have the same opportunities as their more affluent peers to benefit from the cultural capital of a stretching and rigorous curriculum is key to addressing the burning injustices in our societies and driving forward social mobility.

    Designing and implementing these curricula should follow a thorough interrogation of the research. It is right that debates are had about what knowledge we wish to ensure all pupils possess. It is understandable that there are differing opinions about how best to prepare pupils for the challenges of the 21st century. But opinions must change as the facts change.

    In 2010, the government came to office in Britain. We inherited a curriculum that was not fit for purpose. The national curriculum had been stripped of knowledge, leaving pupils without the cultural literacy they needed.

    England was stagnating in the international league tables and too many pupils were leaving school ill-prepared to compete in our increasingly globalised world. Data from 2012 shows we were the only OECD country where the numeracy and literacy of our 16-24 year olds was no better than that of our 55 to 65 year olds.

    We reformed the national curriculum, restoring knowledge to its heart and clarifying what we expected children to be taught. The issues with the 2007 National Curriculum were best summed up by the statutory requirement of secondary chemistry pupils to understand ‘that there are patterns in the reactions between substances’.

    In ‘Could Do Better’ Tim Oates used this example to highlight the vagueness of the 2007 curriculum, writing:

    This statement essentially describes all of chemistry. So what should teachers actually teach? What are the key concepts which children should know and apply?

    The new maths national curriculum for primary schools provides many examples of the specificity and detail needed for a successful curriculum, such as the structured sequence of efficient written methods of calculation that pupils are expected to have mastered at different ages.

    But the curriculum does not sit in isolation. The government also embarked on an ambitious reform of our national qualifications. Grade inflation was rife under the previous government and too many pupils – particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds – were being entered into low quality qualifications. Public confidence in the education system had been knocked.

    The government put an end to grade inflation and is introducing new GCSEs and A levels that put England’s exams on a par with the best in the world. These changes are breathing life back into the country’s education system.

    However, the introduction of new assessments has also been important. The government has announced the introduction of a multiplication tables check for year 4 pupils – a short online assessment designed to support the curriculum stipulation that pupils should know their tables by age 9. The government is determined that no child leaves primary school without securing the basics of mathematics.

    Already, the government has had success thanks to another curriculum change supported by a short assessment. Conscious of the overwhelming research in favour of teaching children to read using systematic synthetic phonics, the government embarked on a campaign to ensure every child is taught to read using the most effective methods. As well as requiring schools to teach using an evidence based phonics programme, the government introduced the phonics screening check – a short assessment of a pupil’s ability to decode simple words.

    The phonics screening check was introduced for the first time in 2012. That year, just 58% of 6-year-olds could correctly read 32 or more words from a list of 40. Thanks to the hard work of teachers and the government’s drive for phonics, there are 154,000 more 6-year-olds on track to be fluent readers this year. The proportion passing the phonics screening check in year 1 has risen to 81%, with 92% having passed the check by the end of year 2.

    The success of this policy has been confirmed by international results. The PIRLS international study of 9-year-olds’ reading ability in 50 countries around the world showed that England has risen from joint 10th place in 2011 to joint 8th place in 2016, thanks to a statistically significant rise in our average score. And the data is clear on the role that the phonics reforms played in these results, with the report accompanying the results concluding that:

    The characteristics that were most strongly predictive of PIRLS performance included prior achievement in the Year 1 Phonics Check.

    Thanks to the hard work of teachers and by twinning carefully sequenced, knowledge-rich curricula with wider support, the government is raising standards in our schools.

    In carrying out the reforms implemented since 2010, the government was careful to pursue evidence based policies. In the world of education, there are many voices who argue that the 21st century has somehow changed how education must be done. They conclude that the technological age necessitates a different approach to education. With the support of some in the business world, they encourage teachers to turn their attentions to developing the creativity, problem solving and critical thinking skills of their pupils.

    Around the world, many educationists – and I see one or two of them here – promote skills-based curricula as the way to prepare pupils for life in the 21st century. Often, knowledge-rich curricula are derided as an impediment to helping pupils to become creative critical-thinking problem solvers, but this is to confuse means with ends.

    The mistake made by these influential voices in education is to believe that creativity is a skill independent of subject domain-specific knowledge; that critical thinking can be taught discretely from the subject being thought about, or that one becomes a better problem solver simply by practicing solving problems.

    Just as musicians become proficient by learning their scales, it is as important that pupils build up the underlying knowledge they will need. We cannot expect a pupil to think critically about the causes of the First World War without an understanding of the delicate balance of power that existed at the turn of the 20th century. And we will not prepare pupils to be the creative, problem solving mathematicians of the future without giving them a firm grounding in the foundations of mathematics.

    This government in the UK is determined that the new national curriculum endows pupils with the knowledge they need, so that they are best prepared for the rigours of a globalised 21st century jobs market. But doing so must be done with due regard for the evidence. There are too many examples of governments around the world that have mistaken ends with means in the hope of preparing pupils for the 21st century, damaging educational standards in the process.

    Writing for the London School of Economics, Professor Lindsay Paterson of the University of Edinburgh has been a vocal critic of movements calling for skills-based curricula, writing of the underlying philosophy:

    It belongs to that strand of curricular thinking sometimes known as constructivism. The essence of this view is that studying bodies of knowledge is pedagogically ineffective. Knowledge goes quickly out of date, and learning it is dull. Children emerge allegedly unable to think for themselves, unskilled for work in the new economy, and unprepared to act as democratic citizens. Instead, children should be enabled to construct knowledge for themselves.

    This description exemplifies the belief system behind such changes. But this view is not supported by the international evidence. As Professor Paterson goes on to say, referencing teachers who are leading the knowledge-revolution in England:

    It is increasingly clear from international comparisons that neglecting knowledge is educationally disastrous. One body of international evidence for that is assembled by E. D. Hirsch in his 2016 book Why Knowledge Matters. Especially cogent arguments in the same vein have come from two teachers in England who have become eloquent writers – Daisy Christodoulou’s ‘Seven Myths About Education’ (2013) and David Didau’s ‘What If Everything You Knew About Education Was Wrong’ (2015). The critique does not deny that skills matter, but rather says that the best way to acquire skills is through gaining knowledge.

    This nuanced understanding of the relationship between knowledge and skills is crucial to approaching curriculum design. In particular, the importance of subject domain specific knowledge to skill acquisition and transferability should be more widely understood.

    A successful curriculum should enable pupils to participate in the great conversations of humankind, and it should prepare pupils to thrive in an ever more globalised and competitive economy. Both of these ambitions require a curriculum designed to give pupils access to the best that has been thought and said. Pupils deserve a rich and stretching knowledge-based curriculum that provides them with cultural literacy and a foundation of knowledge to use and apply in a variety of contexts.

    We should judge our curricula by their success in achieving these aims.

    Thank you.

  • Sam Gyimah – 2018 Speech at the Royal Society

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sam Gyimah, the Minister for Higher Education, at the Royal Society on 22 January 2018.

    Thank you to the Royal Society for hosting us today. Speaking as a new science minister, there is nothing that reminds you of Britain’s awe-inspiring history of scientific excellence like a visit to the Royal Society.

    The photos of generations of distinguished fellows evoke the UK’s great tradition of research. The current fellowship is a list of global stars in discipline after discipline – a reminder that British science has a remarkable present as well as a great past. The sheaf of stats that you receive as a new minister bears this out – and I have rapidly learnt about exotic data like Field-Weighted Citation Indices – the moral of which is that when it comes to science, Britain continues to punch above its weight.

    I’ve also learnt that our research strengths go beyond the scientific remit of the Royal Society to fields of arts, humanities and social sciences. If the watchword of principle of 21st Century innovation is STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths – then the British research base is well positioned for success. After ten days in the job, it’s hard to think that if you are going to be a science and research minister anywhere, Britain is the place.

    But I’m also well aware that when it comes to research and innovation, the UK faces its fair share of challenges.

    Already I have heard some clear messages from you and your scientific colleagues about areas that need more work.

    Importance of achieving a good result for science from Brexit, both in terms of European research funding and in terms of the welcome the UK offers to the world’s best minds.

    Despite concerted efforts over a decade to improve business-university links, business R&D remains disappointingly low by international standards. (Some say we lack the critical mass of institutions that sit between business and research that are more common in countries like Germany or Korea.)

    A strong suspicion that we are not making the most of the country’s potential when it comes to research talent. Whilst the total number of women professors are growing, HESA stats shows that in one third of universities the proportion of women professors has declined in the last five years. There are more black cleaners and porters than lecturers and professors.

    And of course, at a global scale there are a different set of challenges, ones crying out for solutions grounded in technology, science and research: from climate change to how to deploy automation and AI to antimicrobial resistance.

    To shape the future, we need a plan

    I am of the view that if you want to shape the future, you need to do more than worry. You need to act, and for that you need a plan.

    Part of having a plan involves having goals. This is why in the government’s Industrial Strategy has set out a number of grand challenges: areas of societal, global importance where we believe technology and innovation can help us solve some of the most pressing problems facing the world.

    It is also why we have set out a commitment to encourage investment in R&D. In other fields, the government has set clear targets as a sign of our aspiration. We show our commitment to our country’s security by spending the NATO target 2% of GDP on defence. We show our commitment to our international obligations by spending the UN aid target of 0.7% of GDP. And now, in the Industrial Strategy White Paper, we are signalling our commitment to the future of our country and the world through our goal to increase UK R&D spending to 2.4%. This is an ambitious target: an increase of two-thirds. We have begun this process with the biggest increase in public R&D funding for 40 year, ensuring that public spending on R&D will rise in every year of this parliament to around £12.5 billion in in 2021/22.

    As part of this investment in R&D, I’m pleased to announce – in addition to the launch of the Infrastructure Roadmap – the allocation of £70m through the ‘Accelerating innovative healthcare and medicines’ challenge of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund. This investment from government and industry will speed up patient access to new medicines and improve treatments for our ageing society. It will also support new virtual reality projects to help patient recovery. This will see three new Advanced Therapies Treatment Centres opened across the UK in Birmingham, Newcastle and Manchester.

    We will be announcing further details of the second wave of challenges within the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund shortly. This new funding will support challenges to allow us to:

    Prosper from the energy revolution

    Transform construction and food production

    Use data improve early diagnosis of disease

    Develop the technologies and services to support a society that ages healthy

    Use technology to create the audiences of the future for our creative industries

    Pioneer technologies in Next generation services and quantum technologies

    And we will continue this new approach to mission-driven innovation by launching an expression of interest for Wave 3 of the ISCF.

    Openness the world

    To tackle these challenges effectively, we will need to work together with the best and brightest from around the world. Science and innovation are global enterprises. Bill Joy, the founder of Sun Microsystems, famously said “no matter who you are, the smartest people mostly work for someone else”; this is true for companies, but it is also true for countries. British science is at its best when we collaborate deeply with other countries, and welcome researchers to the UK.

    To this end, we are working to deepen our research and innovation ties to other countries – such as the historic agreements we have recently signed with the US and China.

    It also means securing the best possible relationship with the EU after Brexit. I am deeply conscious of the importance of Horizon 2020 and future framework programmers to research in the UK and the huge benefits we have reaped from participation in programmes like the ERC. We are working hard to secure a good research and innovation agreement with the EU after Brexit, and I can confirm that I have already had cordial discussions with Commissioner Carlos Moedas, and will be sitting down with him and other EU science ministers in Bulgaria next week, as my first foreign trip in the job.

    UKRI and its strategic role

    Having goals is a necessary part of having a plan, but not a sufficient one. You also need to capacity to carry out the plan, and to work out how you are doing. This is where UK Research & Innovation comes into the picture.

    The establishment of UKRI was, from the point of view of science and research, the central part of the reforms set out in the Higher Education and Research Act. (At this point, I must acknowledge my great debt to my predecessor in this role Jo Johnson, for stewarding this major reform through Parliament, and to discussing it with so many of you here.)

    UKRI matters because it can fund research and innovation in a mindful, considered and strategic way. Because it brings together the seven Research Councils, it will be better able to bridge the gap between the sciences, social science, and arts & humanities. Because it connects Innovate UK together with the Research Councils, it will improve the links between research and innovation. The first two waves of the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, which is financing R&D in fields with important business applications, suggest that these links are already bearing fruit.

    And by linking Research England to the research councils, it will enable us to carefully consider and better align our funding for specific research projects with the quality related research funding stream. Research England’s work with the other UK funding bodies and the Office for Students will help UKRI in its consideration of the sustainability of the research base, a joined up skills and talent pipeline and an approach to innovation which captures the strengths of each of the devolved nations.

    Just as important will be UKRI’s ability to make strategic funding choices. Sir John Kingman (who I was delighted to see appointed as substantive UKRI chair last week) argued that UKRI should aspire to provide a “strategic brain” for research funding, looking right across the UK landscape. This strategic brain would complement the existing processes of the research councils and Innovate UK, and would help ensure that funding opportunities were not overlooked because they fall afoul of disciplinary boundaries, and that important emerging areas are prioritised.

    The infrastructure roadmap – an example of what UKRI can do

    A good example of the kind of prioritisation that UKRI makes possible is the Infrastructure Roadmap that we are here to initiate today, an initiative where the UK will want and need to play on a global scale. As you know far better that I do, good science and effective innovation depend not just on brainpower and funding but on the right infrastructure.

    Some of this is big, imposing physical kit: from linear accelerators and data centres to research stations, Met Office super-computers and, of course, Boaty McBoatface. Some of it is rather more intangible: such as carefully-collected longitudinal data sets or institutions like the Catapult centres, which are as much about networks and know-how as they are about physical buildings.

    The roadmap will survey the state of the UK’s research and innovation infrastructure, and use this mapping to inform the prioritisation of future investments.

    This matters. If we let our infrastructure decay, research and innovation suffer. In his superb book, “England and the Aeroplane”, historian of science David Edgerton describes how a lack of appropriate wind tunnels and testbed was one of the factors that caused Britain’s aerospace industry, which was at the cutting edge of technology at the end of WW2, to fall behind that of the US. But if we can invest strategically in new infrastructure, we can open up new vistas for research, especially as digital technologies are changing the way research works in discipline after discipline. An example of this is the Structural Genomics Consortium, based at the University of Oxford, is a great example of how open science has been used to spur on innovation in drug discovery. Currently funded by 13 public and private organisations, the consortium takes an open and innovative approach to intellectual property, which allows the industrial partners to collaborate and maximise the impact of the research

    I hope that the Infrastructure Roadmap will be a sign of things to come from UKRI. There is huge potential for UKRI to build on the promising work that has been done by the Research Councils, Innovate UK and HEFCE in recent years to improve how we use data to understand the research base, to investigate promising areas, and to record the impact both of research itself and of the ways we fund research. There is also a great opportunity for UKRI to improve how we communicate research and its benefits to the general public, who after all pay for what we do and have a right to know about it – especially if we want to win popular support for greater public funding of research.

    This work will be led by Professor Mark Thomson, the new Executive Chair of the Science and Technology Facilities Council. I am delighted to announce Professor Thomson’s appointment today; he will be a great asset to STFC, reinforcing the UK’s reputation as being world-beating in this exciting and ever-evolving area of science.

    Mark will take over from STFC Chief Executive Brian Bowsher at the beginning of April when UKRI comes into being. I’m sure we would all like to take the opportunity to thank Brian for his sterling work at the helm of STFC over the last year and congratulate him for his OBE in the New Year Honours.

    Sir Mark and I will be speaking more about the future of UKRI in the weeks and months leading up to its formal launch on 1 April. I am hopeful that it will live up to its promise of being the most exciting research funder in the world.

    Encouraging optimism, and the limits of planning

    Having spoken about the importance of having a plan, I’d like to conclude with a few words of humility. One thing I know is that plans that are too rigid generally don’t survive contact with reality.

    The best plans are dynamic, not dictatorial, and allow room for chance and for change. The same is true when it comes to the government’s vision for research and innovation.

    To encourage innovation, it is not enough to increase investment and to set challenges. We also need to provide the freedom that innovators and optimists need to thrive. In the world of business, this means creating the conditions for new entrants to and competing with old established firms. It means improving access to finance for the best new businesses to scale up.

    It means making sure that our regulators and the rules they make are tech-savvy, and responsive to new ways of doing things. We should draw on examples like the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, where informed, proportionate regulation, devised with public consent, created the conditions where research and investment could flourish, safe from both over-zealous legislators and public backlash.

    And it also means ensuring there is space for serendipity in research. As the sociologist Robert Merton pointed out over sixty years ago, major breakthroughs arise unexpectedly or obliquely. No doubt many of you will recognise this from your own research. Shatterproof glass, penicillin, cancer chemotherapy, and vulcanized rubber are just a few examples of how the most important discoveries are sometimes the most unexpected. Alongside challenge-led funding pots like the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, we believe it is essential to continue to fund curiosity- driven research generously. And we will continue to support a diverse funding system, which values the role of the UK’s impressive research charities, and recognises the importance of QR funding in allowing institutions to invest in their own ideas and capabilities.

    Providing freedom and encouragement for innovators and independent thinkers is essential for the future of research and for the future of the country.

    Conclusion

    Let me conclude by congratulating UKRI beginning their infrastructure roadmap.

    Rising to Global expectations – It will be welcomed in much, if not all, of the UK’s S&R community; but there are global expectations, and we are being watched carefully to see how this great new organisation works – just what will be different for those wanting to work with UK researchers and innovators that will be ensure the UK is hugely attractive to others?

    As we celebrate rising R&D spend from HMG, how will UKRI balance the need to clear accountability (which suggests plenty of process and rules) with creating the space I have just referred to for creativity and invention?

    Launching in April 2018, UKRI will be critical – ensuring the UK maintains its world leading position in research and innovation. It will catalyse a more strategic, agile and interdisciplinary approach to addressing global challenges and play a key role in helping the UK strengthen its competitiveness as part of the new Industrial Strategy.

    If you want to shape the future, it helps to have a plan. UKRI and its infrastructure roadmap is part of that plan.

  • Damian Hinds – 2018 Speech at Education World Forum

    Below is the text of the speech made by Damian Hinds, the Secretary of State for Education, at the Education World Forum on 22 January 2018.

    Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. How wonderful to see such a wide variety and such a large number of colleagues from around the world here at the Education World Forum – the world’s coming together of ministers and policy makers from the world of education, and of course ahead of BETT that follows it – the world’s largest education and technology trade show.

    There is so much we can learn from each other and I want to start with thanking the people who have organised this – this will be the fifteenth that there has been – for all their work they put into it. Some of them have worked on all fifteen of those forums and have brought close to a thousand ministers from around the world to London to share their expertise and share their experiences. And the feeling that they have today, of preparing students for success in the fourth industrial revolution, can hardly be more apt or more timely.

    If you think about all the changes going on all over the world, whether that’s artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, face recognition, voice computing, autonomous vehicles – any one of these things on their own has the power to be revolutionary. Taken together, they certainly do constitute something of the sort of magnitude to turn a revolution.

    And of course in this country, having learnt lessons from earlier industrial revolutions, we are very conscious of the effects that can be. Of course we’ve been here before and on the screen you see some of the various changes that have happened throughout the ages, and there have often been predictions that long swathes of people will find themselves out of work as a result.

    Now of course in the end people found new jobs, whether they would be the stable hands or the scribes, they found other work – or their work evolved to take account of those new technologies. But of course there was often, in these previous big changes, a great deal of upheaval along the way. And the reason why they say that the theme of preparing students for success is the fourth industrial revolution is because of course there is nothing guaranteed about preparing us for these changes and being able to make the very best of the opportunities that present themselves.

    The other thing that is very noticeable from this timeline is that when things accelerated, the pace of change is so much greater than it had been in the past. So we need to make sure – as our economies evolve, as society evolves – we need to be sure that in the world of education we are absolutely there and on top of it.

    So what does it mean for education? Well with all the things that are changing in the world I believe there are some things that don’t change, apart from, they may just be more important than ever they have been. And I do believe this more than ever, that our young people complete their formal education coming away with the knowledge and with the qualifications that they need to make the best success of their lives.

    So these core academic subjects are at the heart of that. In this country, in the United Kingdom, before 2010, our focus had slipped away somewhat from those core subjects and we found that we were experiencing results which were apparently improving year on year. Even while our standing in international comparisons – objective measures of performance – was stagnated. So we had year on year grade inflation.

    All too often, the expectations for the results that would be achieved by young people from disadvantaged backgrounds were not high enough. There was a shift toward alternative qualifications, often targeted toward those people. But it turned out those qualifications were not as highly regarded and did not have the same worth in the jobs market and in society as the more traditional qualifications. And so that could unfortunately limit the possibilities that those young people would have.

    So, the government after 2010 set about addressing those issues. Firstly, by reforming our national curriculum, by bringing renewed rigour to our qualifications, to our GCSEs and A-Levels and bringing in a new suite of subjects, a new measure to really focus on those core subjects that we know are the enabling subjects that open up so many possibilities – English, Maths, Science, the Humanities and languages.

    Nobody, of course, has all the answers and the British government didn’t believe that it had all the answers. In fact, unashamedly, we looked right around the world for where we can learn from. For example, from East Asia, learning approaches to teaching primary mathematics, and that approach has continued. Just last week we welcomed another 36 teachers from Shanghai in a continuation of our teaching partnership with China that has gone on since 2014.

    There’s so much else for all of us to learn from one another, and so many challenges that we share in our different countries. For example, closing the attainment gap, spreading education opportunity ever wider to disadvantaged groups.

    There is no practical limit to the educational world. With organisations like Ofsted and ARK, some of the great names in higher education. What the British Department for International Development has done, particularly in supporting education for girls in developing nations. Some of the great innovators of educational technologies, some of whom you have a chance to meet hear and at BETT. And indeed my experience on change programmes, on school autonomy, on the early years and on phonics.

    We want, like you, we want our students to have an international perspective and very wide horizons. Hence the continuing importance of exchange programmes, particularly for us with European countries but also looking further afield. For example, with the British International Citizenship Service and the Generation UK China programme – and indeed not just with students but also with teachers and headteachers. And we are pleased to have just celebrated the 10th anniversary of our head teacher exchange with Singapore.

    But now that point about international global perspectives helps to highlight the way in which exams and qualifications – the most important things you take with you into life – but they are not the whole picture when it comes to what we will achieve outside the realm of qualifications, which matters a great deal as well.

    That you believe you can achieve, that you stick with the task at hand, that you understand the link there is between the effort you make now and the reward that may come in future – albeit distant and uncertain – and the resilience, the ability to bounce back from the knocks that inevitably life brings to all of us.

    Now I was, until I became the Education Secretary, I was the Minister for Employment and in that role I also heard a lot from businesses about the importance of work place skills, sometimes called ‘employability skills’. Sometimes, by way, also called ‘soft skills’ but I would suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing soft about these skills.

    The hard reality of soft skills is that actually these things around the workplace and these things around character and resilience are important for what anybody can achieve in life, as well as for the success of our economies. They’re not exactly the same thing, character and workplace skills, but there obviously is some overlap.

    I don’t suggest they can just be taught, but clearly what happened the ethos of the school, the expectations that are set for students, and the support that’s given, alongside what happens in extra-curricula activity and sport, public speaking, voluntary work will all have an effect on character resilience or workplace skills that our young people take with them.

    There’s something else about the needs of the modern economy, and that’s digital skills. Something like nine in ten of the new jobs being created require digital skills to some extent and we are blessed in having, coming through now, what you might call the generation digital. Those who have grown up with computers, tablets and phones who can do stuff that when I was young was unimaginable.

    But we want to go further than just having young people who are just able to work with technology and we are taking every chance to make sure we make technology work for us. So, in our new computing curriculum, we are going beyond the ability to use apps, to write apps. We are investing quite heavily – £84 billion over five years – to improve the teaching of computer science. That includes the additional training to a higher level for 8,000 existing teachers of that subject.

    But of course, throughout the economy, throughout society, you can’t predict exactly what the future is going to be. I suggest to you, ladies and gentlemen, that is even more true when you talk about the development of technology. We need to be flexible and we need to be open minded about what may come in the future. And that, of course has a knock on effect into what happens in the Labour Market as a whole, and there are academics throughout the world about what the future shape of the Labour Market may be.

    The truth is, no one really knows what exactly the future of work and what the future of the Labour Market may be and we will need to be able to flex and adapt and adjust.

    Now for too long in this country, the level of adult training has been at a too low paid level. For decades, in this country as I know in others, we’ve talked about the importance of lifelong learning – that’s the ability to take on new knowledge and new skills that shouldn’t stop when your education ends.

    It is a well worn theme I know in many of our systems. I think we are now at the point where we have to really make this a reality. In Britain, we are launching a national retraining scheme to make sure those opportunities are available throughout peoples’ lives. We’re starting in construction and in digital skills and particularly with the digital skills part of the national retraining scheme, it is an opportunity for us to pilot how educational technology can help to deliver digital skills to people right throughout the country in a new innovative way.

    That point about the possibility, the potential of technology leads me to the last thing I wanted to say, and that is about the role of technology in education itself. I know there is trepidation in schools, quite often colleges, about the role of technology. And let me be clear about one thing, in the research that the Department for Education in the UK has done on classroom teaching and how it works, it is absolutely clear that direct instruction is of paramount importance. Teaching education is a people business and it is the inspirational teacher at the front of the class that makes the child’s education. That is the bit which famously and repeatedly they say they will never and do never forget.

    But technology must have a role in our sector, as it does in other sectors, to be able to ease workload – which is a matter I know is of great importance for teachers in this country, and quite rightly so. And I share their drive to wish to work around but also to be able to track and monitor the progress of pupils – and where there are further opportunities to bring new types of content to students and effectively introduce them to whole new worlds.

    And in parts of the world where school is too distant – or perhaps too dangerous – to reach, technology gives an opportunity to reach out with education to people, whether they are children or indeed adults, who might otherwise not have had the opportunity to benefit from it at school. And at the BETT conference that follows this Forum there will be the opportunity to look into those classrooms and those virtual classrooms of the future, and I know colleagues will look forward to that very much.

    Ladies and gentlemen most of what is good in this world comes from our ability to share knowledge. The great inventions, the everyday conveniences – it’s all about coming together and working together. This Forum – the Education World Forum – is a fantastic example of that. It’s about coming together to make sure we can replicate our successes but also, just as important, to make sure we can avoid avoidable and costly failures.

    Decisions that are made here can change lives. Again, I want to thank the organisers for putting on this Forum and all of you for being here. I welcome you to this city and wish you a very successful, enjoyable and productive conference.