Photo courtesy of HM Treasury
The second everlasting secretary to the UK Treasury and head of the Government Finance Function tells Global Government Forum about navigating headwinds, productiveness plans, and the crucial for presidency decision-makers to be consultant of the populations they serve
Taking on one of the vital senior roles in a division as central to the federal government – and the nation – because the UK Treasury is daunting at one of the best of instances. But it’s truthful to say that Cat Little’s transition to everlasting secretary stage on the financial and finance ministry was a extra hair-raising rollercoaster than she might need appreciated.
She rose from director common of public spending to the position of performing everlasting secretary to the Treasury in September 2022, simply two weeks earlier than short-lived prime minister Liz Truss’s disastrous mini funds, which brought on market chaos, crashing the worth of the pound and prompting mortgage charges to skyrocket.
Truss had sacked well-respected Treasury everlasting secretary Tom Scholar two days after assuming workplace – in a transfer criticised by former cupboard secretary Gus O’Donnell and described as an “ideological purge” by FDA union boss Dave Penman – leaving the duty of working the division to Little and her colleague Beth Russell.
Describing it the one approach an neutral senior civil servant can, Little says it was “a fast-paced, challenging, busy time that is well publicly understood”.
Once Scholar’s successor was discovered, within the type of James Bowler, Little grew to become the division’s second everlasting secretary. Since then, her focus has been working with departments to grapple with the influence of inflation on their spending commitments.
The erosion of spending energy has made it “quite difficult to deliver all of the things we had hoped we could” and prompted the making of “difficult choices about how we balance lots of different pressures and priorities in our financial plans”, she says.
Aligned with that has been Little’s work to drive ahead effectivity and productiveness plans. In June final 12 months, chancellor Jeremy Hunt launched an effectivity drive that he promised can be “the most ambitious public sector productivity review ever undertaken by a government”, with the Treasury taking part in a key position as an enabler of reform.
Findings of the evaluate, set out within the Autumn Statement, targeted on decreasing the period of time key frontline employees spend on administrative duties – together with by embracing the alternatives introduced by larger use of synthetic intelligence – and the way preventative motion may scale back demand on public companies.
The process of Little and her staff is now to assist authorities embrace the innovation and expertise wanted.
Little, who will likely be a keynote speaker at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2024 convention on 20 March, says she is considering “how we reimagine public services and the work of the civil service in the future” – one thing which she describes as an “exciting, collaborative piece of work across the whole of the public sector”.
Accelerating decision-making – and why tempo isn’t at all times the reply
Such pondering is ever extra essential amid the headwinds that authorities has needed to cope with in recent years, which vary from the COVID-19 pandemic to the financial and coverage influence of the struggle in Ukraine.
Little says coping with a number of massive occasions has turn out to be regular. “Certainly during my time at the Treasury, we’ve only been operating in a period of multiple competing, complex challenges.”
The Treasury realized in the course of the pandemic, as so many governments did, that it was potential to speed up decision-making and its processes in response to disaster. And most of the modifications made throughout that point have, Little says, been sustained.
She presents just a few examples: “We’ve run approvals in parallel, we’ve condensed the way in which we make decisions, we try to pre-empt decisions being needed.” But she acknowledges that such modifications have to be “balanced with the sorts of risks that you’re willing to tolerate”.
“The most important thing for the Treasury is that we have a responsibility to taxpayers to make sure that we are achieving value for money, that if things are novel and contentious, we’ve considered the consequences of that,” she explains.
Getting that steadiness proper is a continuing problem however Treasury leaders have “really worked hard” to realize equilibrium between including worth and delivering on the division’s core spending management mission whereas on the similar time enabling decision-making to be rather more agile. As a end result, Little says the Treasury is “much more revolutionary in the way in which we develop policy with departments”.
However, although it has been in a position to speed up sure selections and processes, she is eager to emphasize that tempo isn’t at all times the reply.
“Quite often, when we look at major government programmes and very complex government programmes, we encourage more time upfront to make sure that we’ve really thought through the big strategic questions that help set up for success rather than rushing into delivery,” she explains.
Due to the strain to get issues performed, speeding into supply does nonetheless occur, she admits, however what’s essential in such instances, is to verify programmes are “sequenced carefully”.
In her different position as head of the Government Finance Function, Little has been working to draw individuals from completely different components of the general public sector, and from exterior the civil service, into authorities and on easy methods to build long-term careers for individuals with a monetary skilled anchor within the civil service.
The method consists of “encouraging people to do stints in other parts of the civil service, and exposing people to different career paths and different ways of developing new skills”.
More broadly, this imaginative and prescient for permitting extra permeability out and in of the civil service aligns with a push by authorities, together with by then-Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin, who introduced final 12 months that a whole bunch of personal sector tech and knowledge specialists can be seconded to the civil service beneath a brand new scheme.
Leading with candour, openness, and a curiosity concerning the future
Turning to her management model, Little says it’s “always changing”, and essentially so on condition that, as she highlights, a core power of chief is having to “constantly adapt to different circumstances”.
“I think my teams would say that I set direction, I’m very empowering, I’m quite authentic, down to earth.”
When it involves main groups via instances of unpredictability and elevated scrutiny, Little’s perception is that it’s best performed with “candour and openness” and with “lots of regular engagement”.
She is a good believer that to get via intervals of intense change, a frontrunner should get the entire organisation “to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing”.
This is close to unattainable to perform in circumstances the place selections are “completely out of your hands”. Here, Little says “it’s really important to talk about how you actually feel about it because there’s a good chance if you’re feeling it that your teams are feeling it too”.
A dialog about easy methods to handle ambiguity can solely actually achieve success if carried out brazenly and truthfully, she says, “so I tend to walk towards problems, I tend to be very candid, and I will always share how I feel about things in as straight a way as I can”.
Asked concerning the leaders she is impressed by, she says “most senior people in the civil service generally are very inspirational people because they wouldn’t have got there otherwise”. But it’s the individuals on the frontline – these within the organisations which can be “really at the hard edge of delivering public services whilst also delivering national strategy” – who she most admires and learns from.
Having to ship important companies whereas coping with day-to-day calls for, as they do, is a “very difficult challenge”, she acknowledges.
“In many ways my job is so much easier because I don’t have day-to-day operational things that I have to do, I don’t deliver anything. I can afford to be more strategic and to think through complex issues, whereas when you’re in the frontline of the public service you have to do all of that and get the job done – I find it remarkable.”
Improving illustration a ‘very personal responsibility’
One of the advantages of being a civil service chief is the chance to make actual and lasting change, not solely to methods and processes – as Little has evidently been doing with gusto – however to organisational tradition. Getting this proper can result in tangibly improved coverage and public service supply outcomes, and never just for the inhabitants as an entire however for historically maligned pockets of it.
Culture is pushed from the highest, and Little feels a “very personal responsibility” for ensuring that the civil service, and decision-makers specifically, are “much more representative of the communities that we serve and of society at large”.
Gender is only one side of variety and inclusion, after all, however on the subject of ladies in high public service positions, Little says that although “we’ve made great strides” there’s nonetheless a lot work to be performed.
“All of us have a responsibility to spot female talent coming through and to do everything we can to maximise the chances of women with potential reaching the very top of governments and the public sector and broader leadership within society,” she says.
She has, she admits, confronted her personal challenges as a senior lady within the civil service, significantly throughout her three years on the Ministry of Defence board as director common of finance.
“You were quite often the only woman in a room and there is no doubt about it, there is a different way of thinking about problems and working through solutions as a woman,” she says.
Sign as much as turn out to be a member of the Global Government Women’s Network – a group of ladies civil and public servants who advise and help one another as they navigate their careers.
“When you are the only woman in a group of male decision-makers, I think there’s a really important role for men to play in thinking through how that feels, and how you create the space and safety for women to operate and to bring the very best of all of their decision-making capacity and experience.”
The Ministry of Defence has been within the highlight not too long ago after a bunch of 60 girls working in senior civilian roles on the division went public, describing a tradition “hostile to women as equal and respected partners”, through which cases of abuse, sexual assault and harassment are widespread.
Across the civil service, illustration of ladies has “massively improved,” Little says, “but there are still pockets where we have very male dominant decision-making and very male-orientated professions”.
This is one thing she has been instrumental in altering as head of the Government Finance Function. She has, she says, labored “very, very hard” to attempt to shift the steadiness of gender, and she or he is “really pleased” that there’s now a way more balanced senior management “than is certainly typical in the profession at large”.
That doesn’t imply the finance perform – or certainly the civil service normally – can relaxation on its laurels. “It’s fragile and I worry that we can be complacent, and we must never ever be complacent about the importance of representation because it’s fundamentally linked to our successes as an organisation,” Little says.
She explains: “We must remind ourselves continually of why it issues for us to have management that represents society, and it’s as a result of that’s if you make one of the best selections and that’s when you’ve gotten one of the best expertise round an organisation’s decision-making desk – and which means we ship higher outcomes for the nation.
“That business imperative seems to me – in a world where you’re dealing with lots of uncertainty, lots of change, lots of complexity – to be a really important thing that everybody has got to grasp and continue to push on at pace.”
Judging by Little’s tenacity within the face of turmoil in recent years, she is clearly serving to the UK authorities ‘push on at pace’ within the face of unprecedented challenges.
“I get told I’m very modern and I don’t quite know what that means but I suppose it’s future-focused. I’m quite keen to embrace new things and to be curious about the future,” she concludes. Given the vary of points authorities faces, such qualities have by no means been extra important.
Cat Little is talking on the Innovation in authorities concluding session of Innovation 2024 on 20 March. Innovation 2024, co-hosted by the UK Government, UK Civil Service and the Cabinet Office, takes place on 19 and 20 March 2024 in London.
