Outside influence: How to build external voices into the centre of government

The biggest challenges UK government faces, from tackling low economic growth to addressing regional inequalities, adapting to climate change and transforming public service performance, will need to be addressed by harnessing the insight and expertise of people from outside government itself. So what can be done to bring more external expertise into the heart of government? This event explored a core conclusion of the IfG Commission on the Centre of Government – that external voices need to be more embedded in decision making in No.10, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury. The Commission's final report concluded that successive governments had failed to do enough to systemically recruit talented people from outside government and use their skills and insight. On Tuesday 10 September, we reflected on the Commission’s recommendations and discuss how to improve decision making by amplifying expert voices from outside government. The panel were: Baroness Diana Barran, former Minister for Civil Society Sir Ian Cheshire, Chair of Channel 4 and former government lead non-executive director Neil Heslop, Chief Executive of the Charities Aid Foundation Dame Helen Stephenson, former Chief Executive of the Charity Commission for England and Wales The panel was chaired by Dr Hannah White, Director and CEO of the Institute for Government.