Demos Comment: Cabinet Secretary’s lecture on the future civil service

On 10 November, Dame Antonia Romeo gave the Cabinet Secretary’s Annual Lecture at LSE on “rewiring the state” and the future civil service. 

Demos Director of Policy, Jess Sargeant, who attended the speech said:

“The Cabinet Secretary showed passion and determination and her recognition that the civil service needs a fundamental reset, is absolutely correct.

“She identified all the right issues: using AI to make public services more human, strengthening systematic and societal resilience, fundamentally rewiring the centre to devolve power to regions and communities. But to meet the scale of the challenge, she’ll need to go further than the solutions she offered.

“Rebuilding trust needs a clearer answer to what the future civil service is for. A modern civil service should be shaped around citizens and involves them in policy making to build back trust.”