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Reported by Kate McNeil, CSaP Communications Coordinator
Last week, CSaP celebrated its tenth anniversary with the launch of its annual report and a day-long programme of events hosted at the Royal Academy of Engineers in London.
The release of the annual report is an opportunity to reflect upon the work CSaP has done over the last year, and since the centre’s start ten years ago. Over the past decade, 360 Policy Fellows have had the opportunity to make connections with 1643 experts in CSaP’s network. In the annual report’s opening letter, CSaP Executive Director Dr Rob Doubleday has emphasized that the success of these connections has been grounded in centre’s focus on “developing the skills of explain, listening, and understanding across the different worlds”.
This focus on conversations and connections was a key theme throughout CSaP’s anniversary celebrations. The day began with the annual meeting of Policy Fellows, bringing together policy practitioners from across CSaP’s networks for an update on CSaP’s activities and informal roundtable discussions of topics of interest to those in our policymaking community. Discussed topics included data policy, the nature of the civil service, joint human-AI decision-making, horizon scanning, and borders with Europe. In conjunction with this event, Dennis Grube gave a presentation on his book, Megaphone Bureaucracy. The presentation focused on trends in body politic, include a shift from governing in private to governing in public; the development of hyper partisan politics and the alleged politicisation of the civil service, and a shift in the approaches to political communication taken by those working in public policy.
The day’s events concluded with a reception, attended by friends, alumni, and current members of CSaP’s networks. The celebrations presented an opportunity for Dr Doubleday to thank those who have given their time and energy over the last decade to make CSaP’s work possible, and for reflection on the centre’s strengths. Speakers at the event included Dame Fiona Reynolds, who highlighted that demand for what CSaP does has gone up over the past decade because of the magic of an approach which combines intellectual engagement with personal connection, and Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation at the UK Statistics Authority. Mr. Humpherson suggested that the secret to CSaP’s success is in the simple power of un-curated conversation.
The 2018-19 annual report, which reflects upon CSaP's successes and upcoming challenges, can be found here.