The connections you make with people in communities relevant to your work are incredible.
Policy Challenge
I wanted to embed PSED into policymaking, ensuring public authorities meet their obligations under the Equality Act 2010. I was keen to evolve from a compliance approach to a more invested and proactive level of engagement with PSED.
Learning Journey
My engineering background inspired me to join the Policy Fellowship programme. Ensuring civil servants take equality and inclusivity into account while developing and implementing new policies became particularly important this year as we have had to make policy at quite an unusual pace. COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting people in specific backgrounds, and we need evidence that our policies are not doing that as well.
I held a dozen meetings with Academy Fellows. The first four focused on defining the problems of non-compliance and institutional resistance to PSED, with low levels of engagement and understanding of the Equality Act. It was an important first step as if the problem is not defined, then solutions may be solving the wrong problem. This is an area where systems thinking is particularly helpful. Subsequent meetings considered approaches to behavioural and organisational change, before concluding with practical next steps. Chosen techniques included testing general awareness of PSED, mapping stakeholder views and brainstorming causal links. The programme helped me demonstrate that PSED is not only an objective in itself, but its promotion is also an opportunity for civil servants to become better policy professionals.
Louise Dunsby is Deputy Director for Critical and Emerging Technology in the National Security Unit in the Cabinet Office. She was an engineer before joining the civil service, and has retained her chartered status while at BEIS.
Impact
Following discussions with experts, I identified ‘inclusion’ as offering optimal alignment with the user-centric systems-based approach advocated by engineers, since it promotes commonalities rather than differences. Since completing the Policy Fellowship, I have created a PSED Champion role within my department to offer information and tools to policy officials, helping them to consider the PSED implications of their actions. I am keen to set out a vision for policymakers regarding PSED.