Citizens’ White Paper & the Civil Service

Join us for this interactive event from the Collaborative Democracy Network where we will discuss our recent publication, the Citizens’ White Paper and hear from senior civil servants about the work happening in government to involve citizens in policy making.

Speakers include:

• Susan Acland-Hood, Permanent Secretary, Department for Education and Deputy Head of the Policy Profession
• Sally Warren, Director General 10-year Health Plan, Department of Health and Social Care
• Sarah Castell, CEO, Involve
• (Chair) Miriam Levin, Director of Participatory Programmes, Demos

More about this event:

With the new government settling in, now is a good time to discuss both the importance of public participation in policy making to help solve some of the complex challenges ahead, and also the practicalities of how it can be done.

The Citizens’ White Paper, published by Demos in partnership with Involve, set out why, when and how the government could embed public participation in national policy making.

Join us to learn more about current efforts from the government to do policy making differently and produce policies that work better for people and build trust in politics.

Register here

About the speakers:

Susan Acland-Hood

Susan Acland-Hood has been the Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education (DfE) since September 2020.

Susan studied at Cambridge University and has a History MA and an MPhil in Intellectual History and the History of Political Thought.

Her civil service career began in the then Department for Education and Employment in 1999. Before taking on the role at DfE, Susan was Chief Executive of Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service. From 2015 to 2016 she was Director of Enterprise and Growth at HM Treasury, responsible for policies on growth, energy, the environment, business, infrastructure, exports, competition and markets. She was Director of the Education and Funding Group at DfE from 2013 to 2015, and before that held a range of posts covering education and justice policy, including in the Prime Minister’s Office in No.10, the Home Office, the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, and the Social Exclusion Unit.

Sally Warren

Sally Warren is Director General, 10-year health plan, leading a joint DHSC and NHS England team. Prior to this, Sally was the Director of Policy for five years at The King’s Fund. Sally has over 20 years of experience working in health and care, with roles including Director for Social Care Policy at DHSC, Director of Programmes at Public Health England, Director of EU Exit Preparedness and Response at Defra and Deputy Chief Inspector at Care Quality Commission.

Sarah Castell

Sarah has been CEO of Involve since 2021. She brings over 20 years of leadership in public participation, deliberative decision making and Futures advisory work. This includes running social qualitative research at Ipsos MORI, establishing and leading the Ipsos Dialogue Centre, then launching the company’s foresight practice, Ipsos Trends and Futures. Sarah is passionate about developing the effective evidence and delivering the real practice which can shift power, working towards a democracy with deliberation and participative processes at the heart of decision making every day. Under her leadership Involve is delivering a number of significant programmes of work, including supporting local government in England on public engagement with climate strategy and policy (Thriving Places and Local Climate Engagement); bringing the public voice into decision making on future science and technology (Sciencewise); convening the UK’s democracy sector (The Democracy Network): and raising capacity for the public to play a more active part in democracy (Everyday Democracy).

Miriam Levin

Miriam is Director of Participatory Programmes at Demos.

Miriam was previously Chief Executive of Engage Britain until their merger with Demos. Prior to that she was Engage Britain’s Programme Director and led their people-powered policymaking work on health and care, which knitted deliberative and participatory methods together to build policy from the grassroots up. She has also worked for the UK government as Head of Community Action, where she led the government’s first deliberative democracy programme, and was Head of Outreach at English Heritage.

Her postgraduate studies have taken in several disciplines from archaeology to museology, regeneration to urban design, some of which she still uses.

About the Collaborative Democracy Network:

The Collaborative Democracy Network is a new event series created by Demos. It is for politicians, policymakers and civil society to come together to discuss innovations that put people at the heart of policy making.

If we’re going to build a more collaborative democracy that supports politicians to work with the public on the difficult choices that lie ahead, we’re going to have to do policy making differently. This means bold thinking about what’s possible, looking honestly at what the challenges will be, and drawing inspiration from democratic innovation from across the world.

Demos will be hosting a series of regular events bringing together leading voices in participatory ways of working with politicians, policy-makers and civil society from across the UK. Together we will explore how collaborative democracy can become a reality, creating better policy making processes, strengthening citizenry, and renewing trust in our democracy.