Heywood Quarterly

25/07/2025

What makes a good civil servant? 🤝
Discover the ten key traits valued by Jeremy Heywood…👇
heywoodquarterly.com/the-ten-traits…

16/07/2025

As Heywood Quarterly marks its one-year anniversary, founder Suzanne Heywood reflects on the successes of the past year - and what's to come...

📖 Check out all four of our editions for free: https://heywoodquarterly.com/editions/

15/07/2025

11/04/2025

The Third Edition of the Heywood Quarterly - Fuelling Government with Data - is now live!
Our latest edition, which explores the importance of data, technology, and AI in government is available to read on our website 👇

You can read Editor in Chief Tim Dickson’s Introduction here, which reflects on some of the principal themes: the importance of data in government, the role of technology and artificial intelligence, and the value of evidence-based thinking in policymaking.

04/04/2025

Discover how the UK Civil Service can learn from top performers like Singapore and Finland in Gus O’Donnell and Kathy Hall’s review the latest Blavatnik Index for the Heywood Quarterly 👇

Gus O’Donnell and Kathy Hall review what the latest Blavatnik Index has to show us about comparative strengths and weaknesses Sir Chris Wormald, the new Cabinet Secretary, told Parliament earlier this year that great policymakers are “self-confident enough to pick up the phone for that...

26/03/2025

26/03/2025

Recent declines in childbearing have led experts to warn that levels are worryingly low. Sir Ian Diamond explores the reasons behind these trends and their implications for UK policymakers in our latest article 👇

heywoodquarterly.com/how-childbeari…

The components of population growth have been changing faster than at any time in my 45 years of working on population data. For example, people’s expectations of how long they will live have been increasing more slowly of late, while there are signs of widening inequality in the way different soc...

10/03/2025

How does Yes, Minister still shape our view of the civil service? Our latest article explores why it's time to move beyond its tropes and embrace a new era in Whitehall 👇

https://heywoodquarterly.com/no-minister-the-long-and-lamentable-shadow-of-sir-humphrey/

Dorothy Wainwright is a minor character in the Yes, Minister universe, but she is one of the sharpest. We meet her in the first series of Yes, Prime Minister where she acts as a counter to the circumlocutory and obstructive Sir Humphrey Appleby.

18/02/2025

https://heywoodquarterly.com/why-the-policy-profession-must-embrace-ai/

24/01/2025

Congratulations to Doug Gurr, new interim Chair of the CMA! Doug also leads the Natural History Museum, and has just written this article for us on how to turn ancient data into gold. Watch out for woolly mammoths 🐘🐘!👇

Deep in the bowels of the Natural History Museum (NHM) in South Kensington, London, is a vast hidden cavern filled with metal storage cabinets where normally only curators and scientists are allowed to roam.

16/01/2025

The Heywood Quarterly team gathered last week to brainstorm what's next in 2025, and beyond.
Our third edition is due out this spring. Join our mailing list on our website so we can let you know as soon as articles are released! 👇

heywoodquarterly.com

16/01/2025