Leading Questions Global Government Forum

In this, the last episode of Leading Questions series 3, Andy Haldane talks about thriving on leading through crisis and the challenges and opportunities “when the old is broken and the new is yet to be forged”.
Having spent 32 years at the Bank of England, latterly as chief economist, headed up the UK government’s Levelling Up taskforce, founded the charity Pro Bono Economics, and spent the last two years as chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, Andy has a range of roles and experiences to draw on. Yet though he has been very honest publicly about his organisations’ successes and failures over the years, he hasn’t divulged much about his own leadership style and motivations – until now.
The man once named amongst the world’s 100 most influential people by Time magazine has seen his fair share of crises – not least, during his time at the Bank of England, the global financial crisis of 2008, the European debt crisis, Black Wednesday, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Looking back over those 32 years, it was hallmarked or perhaps pockmarked by crises. They always come along, don’t they? But we seem to have had a particularly virulent sequence over the last 15 years plus,” he says.
It is fortunate, then, that Andy is energised by the opportunity to drive big, system-wide change.
Motivated by his belief that the most effective and durable way of making change is to engage as broad a base of stakeholders as possible, Andy describes the importance of listening to those not often given a voice. Indeed, speaking to people for whom the economy was not working proved to be “one of the most valuable sources of intelligence I could have had”.
He also speaks of his tendency to be publicly honest about the things that have gone wrong and to suggest ideas radically different from the status quo; his concern that civil servants do not have “a long enough window of relative tranquillity to build their sea defences against whatever the next tsunami might be”; and of the importance of having an “optimistic, non-fatalistic mindset”.
This fascinating episode is a window into the motivations of a man in the business of “establishing next practice rather than best practice thinking”, of considering what’s around the corner, and of “instilling a sense of belief about what’s possible”.
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Estonia’s most senior civil servant, secretary of state Taimar Peterkop, shares his insights into leading through crises.  
From dealing with a vulnerability in the country’s digital ID system – which involved updating thousands of digital services – to the country’s response to the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, this is an episode packed with lessons on what to do when government is faced with emergency.  
Taimar’s main learning from the digital ID crisis was the importance of building relationships with the private sector, academia and civil society – so that they can be called upon when the government lacks the internal capabilities to deal with crises on its own.  
“You need all the different players in these situations to talk the same talk and to have the same message: ‘This is the problem, this is the solution, and don't worry’,” Taimar says.  
Through clear and consistent communication with citizens, the Information System Authority, which led the work to secure the IDs and which Taimar headed up at the time, managed not only to retain trust in the digital ID system but to actually increase it. Indeed, following the incident, use of the cards actually began to rise.  
When COVID hit, by which time Taimar had been appointed secretary of state, he took the lessons from that crisis and applied it to his leadership through the pandemic, not least in looking after the wellbeing of public servants, many of whom were having to work 16-hour days. He brought in mental health advisers and gave officials who had done exceptionally well gifts to boost morale. 
Also describing his part in moving management of the pandemic response from the health department to the prime minister’s office and establishing a COVID taskforce; Estonia’s readiness for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; his background as a lawyer and technologist; and why he has decided to work for two years in his second term rather than the usual five, this is a not-to-miss episode for any public servant interested in how government can prepare in the era of permacrisis.  

In this episode of Leading Questions Dame Una O’Brien, who was permanent secretary of the UK Department of Health between 2010 and 2016, joins podcast host Siobhan Benita for a chat about her unconventional route into the civil service, and what she learned along the way.
Having been appointed health department permanent secretary just as a coalition government was formed, and responsible for implementing sweeping and controversial healthcare reforms, Una was right in the thick of it – being scrutinised before a parliamentary committee no less than 28 times.  
It was a “bumpy” ride, she admits, but one she was absolutely ready for – not least because a breadth of experience acquired outside the civil service in her 20s stood her in good stead for the challenges to come.


The daughter of Irish immigrants who were “firm believers in giving back”, with a love of history and having received teaching on the British Constitution, Una decided to pursue a career in either politics or the civil service.
She soon realised she wasn’t cut out for the misogynistic political environment in the UK at the time – “I wasn’t prepared to fight that fight”, she says, acknowledging that other women had “much more moral courage than I did”.
So, when viral meningitis struck leading to months in hospital, Una re-evaluated her career path, and after 10 years in politics and parliamentary and academic research, moved into the health sector and later the civil service Fast Stream, landing first in the Department of Health.
Though she went on spend time at the Cabinet Office and transport department, she always returned to health. As she describes, the experience prior to joining the civil service that had “the most profound effect on me” in the decades afterwards, was the three years she spent working to set up a hospice and care centre for people with AIDS and HIV “right in the white heat of the controversy about that disease, as it started to really hit communities in London in the late 1980s”.
She saw first-hand the people who were on the receiving end of poor care and discrimination and who felt excluded from public services – something that “gave health a centrepiece in my inner world” and spurred her on in subsequent work.
She shares the part she played in the Bristol/Kennedy Inquiry into the deaths of babies after heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary and an inquiry into poor care at a hospital in Staffordshire. The latter led her to the “deeply hurtful” realisation that her department’s responses to letters from patients’ families lacked empathy and that troubling patterns of substandard care had been missed – leading to reform of the department’s handling of letters from the public.
Having risen up the ranks – Una spent time as the health department’s director general of policy and strategy – she was appointed permanent secretary exactly 20 years to the day since she joined the civil service. She describes vividly the vision she had while waiting to go into the interview room of all the women who had supported her in the past standing behind her, willing her to succeed, and thinking “I can’t let you down”.
Also touching on her current work as a career and leadership coach, insights into working with ministers, and the skills needed in this new world of hybrid work, this is an episode packed with personal reflections from a leader whose motivations never wavered.

Podcast host Siobhan Benita speaks know-how and knock-backs with the deputy director of learning at Spain’s National Institute of Public Administration.  

Israel Pastor has more than 20 years’ experience as a senior manager in the Spanish state administration – including stints in the health, environment, finance and justice departments – affording him a broad perspective on leadership and what it takes to make the organisation you’re in charge of better.    

Having studied hard to get through a rigorous selection process whereby people with no prior professional experience can become an executive member of the civil service – entering at grade 26 of 30 – Israel found himself leading a team in an unfamiliar organisation whilst still in his 20s.     

He advises others who find themselves faced with such a baptism of fire, to “find your references, your mirrors and your mentors” and to have the humility to learn from less senior colleagues.  

Entering any new high-ranking position requires vision, the ability to connect disparate projects and programmes, and the resources “in your backpack” to make improvements, he says. And as listeners will find out, it is these capabilities, along with a focus on shining a spotlight on the work of his teams and being attentive to colleagues’ needs, that epitomise his leadership style.  

Also describing his current work leading the civil service’s learning and development programme, Israel shares his view on what leaders’ greatest challenge will be in the coming years and how to overcome it, and touches on much more besides: on frank discussions with political bosses; pushing back against the stereotype of the lazy civil servant; overcoming stress; the importance of institutional communication; and remaining faithful to your public service calling.  

Don’t miss this episode featuring a man who has been determined from a young age to be the best public servant he could be.  

Iain Rennie spent 30 years in the New Zealand Public Service culminating in eight years in the top job – that of state services commissioner.
In this episode, Iain tells podcast host Siobhan Benita about talent management reform, his realisations about leadership, his work as a consultant to governments around the world, and why public servants should be mindful of the increasingly diverse perspectives of citizens.  
Realising that great leaders in the New Zealand Public Service often reached their potential “despite the system” rather than because of it, Iain’s focus in his latter years in the top job was on devising and implementing a more systematic way of identifying and nurturing talent and “empowering people with a sense of possibility”.
He credits this and subsequent work with women now accounting for more than 50% of senior executive roles – but there is “unfinished business” he says, particularly around ethnic representation.
Now working with civil and public services around the world to improve their effectiveness, he describes what looking at governments from the outside in, as well as the inside out, has meant for his perspectives.
And he also looks back on the lessons from COVID – particularly that governments “failed pretty spectacularly” when it came to wellness – and his belief that the frames put around government response to major shocks are too narrow.
Also sharing his thoughts on waning public trust and the rise of mis- and disinformation, and the promise of technology to change public services for good, this is an episode packed with the kind of wisdom that comes only through decades of hard work, experience and reflection. 

This special episode of Leading Questions shares the results from the 2023 Responsive Government Survey. Report author Richard Johnstone shares the headlines from the research, while contributors to the report - Grete Kvernland-Berg, the managing partner and country head for Norway at PA Consulting Group; Alexander Evans OBE, professor of practice in Public Policy at London School of Economics and former strategy director in the Cabinet Office in the United Kingdom; and Michael Wernick, the Jarislowsky chair of public sector management at the University of Ottawa, and former cabinet secretary in the Canadian government – share their thoughts on what success looks like for public services in the era of permacrisis.