Thinking Forward: reflections on the future of public administration from a career at the public policy front line.
“Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past”. Machiavelli
If we are wanting to look forward to the future of public administration – what should, or can, we learn from the past? This session will reflect on the future of public administration from the perspective of a 40-year career spanning private, public and voluntary sectors, stretching from the corridors of Westminster, Whitehall and Washington, to managing the front-line delivery of local services. A career that started during the Thatcherite era of deregulation and privatisation, was immersed in the Blairite managerialism and Brownite public sector expansion of the 1990s, and weathered the Coalition’s subsequent austerity and Brexit, and today is responding to the rapidly changing political landscape and the emergence of AI.
But what do we mean by public administration? Why does our public administration in the UK urgently need to be rethought? And what does that mean for the planning and delivery of public services of the future?
Dr Sian Thornthwaite
Sian studied Georgraphy at Newcastle University in the mid-1980s and developed an interest in the accessibility and delivery of services in rural areas. Following a Masters in Transport Engineering & Operations, she completed her PhD research into child safety and school transport in the UK and USA. She has spent the majority of her professional career in consultancy working with local authorities to improve the delivery of public services and advising Government departments and agencies in the UK and overseas on child safety and transport issues. This led to a MA at Nottingham Law School and a parallel career in the criminal justice sector, including more than 15 years as a magistrate chairing adult criminal and youth courts and a decade on the Monitoring Boards of two Cat B prisons.
Sian came to Northern Ireland in 2015 for 10 months to chair an independent review of transport and ended up staying for 10 years. Following an interim management role with Bus Eireann, since 2017 she has worked with the Strategic Investment Board on the development of Executive Strategies including the EVAWG, Green Growth, and Investment Strategies. She is the programme lead for the small business research initiative, which utilises challenge-based procurement to enable SMEs and micro businesses to drive innovation in the public sector. Sian was a Sloan Fellow at London Business School and has a Masters in Leadership and Strategy.
