The Rt Honourable Pat McFadden MP, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, gave a speech this morning at UCL East, hosted by the UCL Policy Lab.
The speech set out the Labour Party’s plan for the future of the UK’s public services in more detail, as laid out by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer last week in his ’ Plan for Change’ speech.
McFadden was introduced by the Director of the UCL Policy Lab, Marc Stears, before he gave his speech and answered media questions.
The speech aimed to discuss how to re-wire the current state of governance and improve public services. In his speech, McFadden argued that "curiosity is an essential quality of leadership" and affirmed that he was "more interested in [presenting] an answer" to current problems.
He placed a particular emphasis on the need for further technological innovation needing to be led from the UK itself in future years - referencing Airbnb, Spotify and WhatsApp, he illustrated that companies the global population now relies on, on a daily basis, did not exist twenty years ago - and this pointed to the future of technological innovation.
He added that "we are here on the cusp of the next technological revolution", and "if we’re terrified of failure, we will never innovate". The Department of Education for example, is using artificial Intelligence to try and reduce teachers’ workload and thereby allow them to focus more on delivering teaching time to students.
In a general call to creative and innovative people who can come up with solutions to the problems facing the public sector, McFadden added that "this is your chance to serve the country". This comes in tandem with the launch of a £100 million Innovation Fund to push for public service reform. Additionally, he pushed for a "test and learn culture" when approaching challenges, justifying that this method was successful when the system of Universal Credit was being rolled out, for example.
The first two projects from the fund will aim to address the creation of family hubs and improving the problem of temporary accommodation. They will be based in Manchester, Essex, Sheffield and Liverpool, and will eventually be implemented as 6-12-month programmes across the country.
McFadden is also aiming to simplify the "mind-bogglingly bureaucratic and off-putting" application processes for civil service jobs. This comes in response to Sir Keir Starmer stating last week that "too many people in Whitehall" were "comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline".
McFadden firmly ended his speech with "this is just the start of the conversation... the UK needs to change with it". In UCL East, the heart of innovation at UCL, the future of public services was laid out today.
UCL is one of the country’s leading universities in the field of innovation and enterprise - there has been £3.2 billion of external investment in UCL start-ups and spinouts since 2018.
Marc Stears, Director of the UCL Policy Lab, said: "We are delighted to host this speech, in this incredible space at UCL East; it’s wonderful to have you.
"Here at UCL we stand for excellence. We are truly global in our aspirations and our outreach. We are also truly open to people from all backgrounds, from all parts of our community.
"And it is those two missions - that idea of excellence and openness - that structures today’s conversation. We’re here to talk about how we can rewire a state, how we can improve public services, how we can enhance opportunities for people of all backgrounds."
