John Hirst
Chief Executive of the Met Office
What were your biggest policy and delivery challenges in 2013? How did you handle them?
The biggest challenges for the Met Office come from outside – from the weather and the people we serve – but we are used to dealing with dynamic environments. Nonetheless this year has been full-on, with launches of new services like our Space Weather service in collaboration with the US, providing advance warning of space weather events that can cause temporary disruption to electricity supply, satellites and GPS navigation. We’ve seen breakthroughs in the retail industry, providing new services that significantly improve efficiency and reduce food waste. We’ve demonstrated fantastic forecasting of the October storms in the UK, thanks to the continued application of our world-leading science, collaboration with the US NWS through the tornado season, and providing high-resolution forecasts for the Philippines’ Typhoon Haiyan – then supporting the responder communities.
We have also had the first release of IPCC’s fifth assessment report, providing a clear view of the current state of scientific knowledge relevant to climate change. The Met Office continues to be a key contributor to the IPCC’s work, resulting in our small city of Exeter having more authors on the report than any other in the world. This involved not just science, but also communications and collaborations. Having launched the Climate Service UK earlier in the year, the Met Office Hadley Centre is now also playing a lead role in the EU initiative for climate service observations and modelling as part of Horizon 2020. Our leading role in this places the UK at the heart of the future provision of climate services and advice.
Where have you made the most progress in implementing the Civil Service Reform Plan, and what are your reform priorities for 2014?
At the Met Office we have a philosophy of continuous improvement, driving efficiency and effectiveness and comparing ourselves to the best of the private sector – so many of the reform plan’s objectives are built into our DNA. For the second year in a row we were named in the UK’s Top 20 Social Brands – the only public sector organisation in the top 700. We have been named as one of the Top 50 Companies for Customer Service, and described in a Times editorial as “by far and away the leading forecaster on planet Earth”. So in terms of delivering what we promise and providing outstanding service, we are making our contribution.
What are your key challenges in the last year of the Parliament? How will you tackle them?
To a certain extent, next year will be similar to the last – but we do have some major progress in science to roll through into our services. We will deal with the weather, climate science debate, volcanic eruptions, floods (with our colleagues from the Environment Agency) and anything else the natural world throws at us, and we will aim to share and use our progress to the benefit of the our customers and the UK as a whole.
What would you most like Santa to bring you this year? And what would you like him to take away?
If Santa could bring me better performances from Sunderland football club and take away a bit of bureaucracy, I would be a happy man.