This webinar is intended to explore how public services and the organisations delivering them have responded to, coped with and been reshaped by pandemic. It will discuss the longer-term implications for these services of the financial, demand, and sustainability effects of the pandemic and will address the questions of which services we will want, which we will need and whether we will have to choose which we can afford.
The effects of pandemic have been and continue to be profound. The impact upon public services, their delivery and the organisations responsible for them is raising fundamental questions about the purpose of those services during and after pandemic. Paying for the cost of pandemic, its effects on the shape and availability of services, the consequences of different demand as working and living patterns evolve and the effects of deferred demand - particularly in health and care – all pose tough challenges.
How is future public expenditure likely to impact upon services as pandemic debt is addressed? Does learning on flexibility and innovation during COVID contain opportunity for services to be nimbler, more efficient and better joined up? Can the challenge of meeting this public health emergency help to reshape public services to better meet – or even avoid – a future crisis? Have we finally found a point at which the prevention agenda, co-production and placemaking can be given primacy in the reshaping of services fit for purpose in the digital and global age?
Professor Mitchell will consider the purpose and shape of public services before and after COVID. Dr Moir will discuss what has been learned as public bodies and public services have worked to cope with COVID. Adam Lang will reflect on public sector innovation and reform and what ‘building back better’ would look like.
Key points
Emeritus Professor of Management
Queen Margaret University
Head of Nesta, Scotland
Nesta, Scotland
Executive Director of Resources
The City of Edinburgh Council
Professor of Public Policy
University of Edinburgh
Richard Kerley
Emeritus Professor of Management
Queen Margaret University
Professor Richard Kerley is Professor of Management at QMU with a specific interest in public service management. He was previously at the University of Edinburgh and the Scottish Local Authorities Management Centre, University of Strathclyde . He has also been a visiting scholar at Yale University. Before entering academic life, Richard worked in advertising, hospitality and in prison education. He also worked for four different councils, in adult education and then latterly in staff and management development.
He is currently also a Non-Executive Director with Mainstreet Consulting and a Trustee of the Centre for Scottish Public Policy 2021. He has been on the board of various companies, charities, and arts organisations.
Richard is the author of various books, research papers, academic journals, and numerous articles in the quality print media. His most recent publications include an edited book on International Local Government, and he is currently working on a taxonomy of international local government.
Richard chaired the Working Party on Renewing Local Democracy; the report of which was published in July 2000, and which was legislated for in June 2004 as the Local Governance Act. He has carried out research projects supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Scottish Consumer Council, Alcohol Scotland, The Accounts Commission Scotland, Tayside, Edinburgh and Fife Councils, the Association of MBAs, and the Scottish Government. He has been engaged in consultancy projects by government; local governments; government agencies; voluntary organisations and international education providers.
Adam Lang
Head of Nesta, Scotland
Nesta, Scotland
Adam leads the work of Nesta in Scotland with a focus on supporting digital, data and technology-driven innovation for social good.
Adam is a member of the Scottish Leaders' Forum as well as the Scottish Government’s AI Strategy Steering Group and sits on the Scotland CAN DO Business Innovation Forum.
Adam joined Nesta after five years as the Head of Policy and Communications for Shelter Scotland, where he was part of both the charity's UK senior leadership team and Scottish directorate leadership team. Prior to this Adam spent several years working in a range of policy, public affairs and strategic communications roles in Scotland across the public, private and civil society sectors.
Adam is currently a member of the Board of Trustees for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organizations (SCVO) and sits on the Governing Committee for the Association for Scottish Public Affairs (ASPA).
Adam has three young children and spends most of his free time trying to stop them from killing each other. When he gets the chance, he enjoys cooking, reading, the cinema and single malt Islay whisky.
Stephen Moir (Dr)
Executive Director of Resources
The City of Edinburgh Council
With an annual operating budget of more than £1.3 billion and employing 18,500 people, the City of Edinburgh Council delivers over 700 public services to the people who live in, work in, study in or visit Scotland’s Capital City. As the Council’s Executive Director of Resources since July 2017, Stephen is responsible for the strategic leadership of the Council’s diverse corporate and customer services portfolio covering a direct budget of £170 million and 2,800 people, including: Human Resources (HR); Finance; Procurement; Digital Services; Legal, Audit and Risk; Health and Safety; Strategic Asset Management; Commercial Property; Facilities Management; Customer Contact; Council Tax and Business Rates collection; Welfare Reform and Benefits administration. In addition, Stephen is the Chairman of LPFE Ltd, one of the key governing bodies for the £8 Billion Lothian Pension Fund, for which the Council is the Administering Authority.
In his last role before joining Edinburgh, Stephen was the Chief People Officer for NHS England and head of profession for HR in the NHS, the 5th largest employer in the world. Before NHS England, Stephen was the Deputy Chief Executive of the Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust and has worked as an executive director for more than 15 years. A HR professional by background, Stephen has worked in a range of roles both within and beyond HR in the NHS, Local Government and the Police Service, at local, regional and national levels in England and Scotland. Stephen has also held a range of non-executive roles, including serving for 6 years as a Board member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). He has also been a Non-Executive Director for the national improvement agencies for both Local Government and the Police Service in England. Stephen is currently the Vice Chair of the University Court at Edinburgh Napier University and is a member of both the Remuneration and Finance and Property Committees of the Institution.
James Mitchell (Professor)
Professor of Public Policy
University of Edinburgh
Completed undergraduate degree at Aberdeen University and doctoral thesis at Nuffield College, Oxford University. Holds the Chair in Public Policy having previously held Chair in Public Policy in the University of Sheffield (1998-2000) and Chair in Politics in the University of Strathclyde (2000-2013). Joined the School in April 2013. Interests primarily in territorial politics, public policy and government, political behaviour:
Currently working on publications drawn from studies of Scottish independence referendum, Scottish elections, surge in SNP and Green Party membership and public service reform with focus on prevention in public policy and reform of local governance.
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