The generalist all-rounder has been a long-standing feature of Civil Service discussions, but the term is confused and confusing. Tamara Finkelstein, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and head of the UK Civil Service Policy Profession, questions whether it is time to move away from the term. Policy professionals are highly skilled – they need to run multidisciplinary teams, synthesise large volumes of often complex information, give honest and accurate advice to ministers and decision makers and communicate clearly.

Tamara will set out her plans for the future of policy making in government, followed by a discussion about how, if not as generalists, we should think of policy civil servants, the skills they need and how to embed professional expertise in the policy making process.

For this discussion we are delighted to be joined by:

• Tamara Finklestein, Defra permanent secretary and head of the civil service policy profession
• Sir Patrick Vallance, former chief scientific adviser and chair of the Natural History Museum

The panel will be chaired by Alex Thomas, a programme director at the Institute for Government. 

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