Phillip Blond and Jamie Bartlett from Demos will talk about a major new project in partnership with NESTA which will set out a radical new agenda for the reform of public services.

Policymakers across the parties agree that greater local autonomy is crucial for the radical innovation we need in public services.  The project, 'Leading from the Front', will investigate the potential of radical decentralisation to improve and re-professionalise public services.  It will consider how the most innovative workplace practices from the private sector can be applied to public services to create a practical post-bureaucratic state.

'Leading from the Front' is part of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos, which is exploring the ways in which conservative philosophy, politics, and policy can serve progressive goals.

Please join us as for a breakfast discussion as Phillip and Jamie talk about the background to the project, current barriers to innovation in public services, and initial thinking from the project for a new agenda for reform.

Time
8.15am – 9.15am (Breakfast available from 7.45am)

Biographies
Phillip Blond is the Director of the Progressive Conservatism Project, and is an internationally recognised political thinker, and economic and cultural commentator.  He has recently published a number of comment and analysis pieces in the Financial Times, The Independent, The Guardian and The Sunday Times.  His work has attracted considerable attention as an advocate of a radical, progressive Toryism.  Prospect magazine named him as the British thinker to watch in 2009, and The Times called his book Red Tory one of the forthcoming highlights of the year.

Jamie Bartlett is a senior researcher on public services at Demos and head of the Independence Programme.  He is the author of a number of reports about public sector reform including 'A Constitution for Social Care' (2009), 'Making it Personal' (2008) 'Personal budgets and the third sector' (2008), 'Agile Government' (2008), about the Australian public sector, and has advised governments internationally about public sector reform.