Richard Heaton
Permanent Secretary and First Parliamentary Counsel, Cabinet Office
Which events or policies have dominated your attention during 2012, and how have you tackled them?
Starting two new jobs has taken up a lot of my attention, to be honest. I became First Parliamentary Counsel in February and then, additionally, Permanent Secretary for the Cabinet Office in August. It’s been rewarding, and a bit of a relief, to find that these jobs have more in common than might at first appear: centre of government; traditions of excellence; cross-cutting; innovation; finding solutions.
I think our reform story really makes sense when you start to make connections. How do we meet a growth in the demand for public services with fewer resources? Certainly by being more efficient, and spending money more sensibly. But also by being smarter and more digital, and by thinking about ICT differently. And by putting our data out there for others to use, and by knowing how to form new kinds of partnership with the private and not-for-profit sectors. And by promoting social investment, and by allowing the voluntary sector to thrive.
How have the shape and capabilities of your department changed during 2012?
Not many people know this, but the Cabinet Office is a serious delivery department. Our big programmes have hit their stride this year: we’re implementing the National Citizen Service; we’ve embarked on the Next Generation Shared Services programme; and Individual Electoral Registration is ready to go.
Which aspects of the Civil Service Reform Plan are most important to improving the capabilities and operations of your department?
We have to practise what we preach – partly because we lose credibility if we don’t, and partly because civil service reform means a more effective and more self-confident civil service. So I’d like us to be ambitious on becoming digital, and brilliant on how we bring on talent and give people the chance to learn.
What are the main challenges facing your department in 2013?
I’m going to answer that as First Parliamentary Counsel. We have a packed legislative programme until the end of this session of Parliament, and then another following the Queen’s Speech in early summer. That means our professional drafters will be writing around 40 Bills, large and small. All of them must work as intended, and they need to be clear and readable. Our next job is to help ministers navigate them through Parliament. And all that’s in the context of our wider goal, which is to promote good law across government, Parliament and beyond: law which is accessible, clear, coherent and effective. What makes bad law? What are the causes of unnecessary complexity and muddle? How do we tackle them?
Cracker jokes are notoriously bad. Can you give your colleagues a good joke to tell over the Christmas dinner table?
For those political dinner tables:
Why do anarcho-syndicalists drink herbal tea?
Because all proper tea is theft.