‘Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets’. So what is wrong with the design of British government, and how has it resulted in catastrophic failures of governance in recent years? To mark the publication of his new book with LSE Press, Professor Gwyn Bevan and political podcaster and author Ros Taylor will reflect on a century of systemic failures of governance and explore what an innovative state might look like in the future.
Meet our speakers and chair
Gwyn Bevan is Emeritus Professor of Policy Analysis in the Department of Management at LSE and author of How did Britain come to this? A century of systemic failures of governance. He is an Affiliate Professor in the Istituto di Management of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa; adviser to the Inspectorate of police and fire services in England and Wales, and to the Education Commission of the Rockefeller Foundation on research in developing countries. He has served on advisory committees to governments in England on allocating resources for health care and public health, the reform of publicly-financed legal services, and funding research into overseas aid. He was Director of the Office for Healthcare Performance at the Commission for Health Improvement (2001 to 2004), which was responsible for inspections of quality of care in the NHS in England and Wales.
Ros Taylor is a presenter and contributing editor at Podmasters, and a former editor at the LSE. Her book The Future of Trust will be published by Melville House in 2023.
Tony Travers is Director of LSE London, a research centre at LSE, and Visiting Professor in LSE’s Department of Government. His key research interests include local and regional government and public service reform.
More about this event
This event is part of the LSE Festival: People and Change running from Monday 12 to Saturday 17 June 2023, with a series of events exploring how change affects people and how people effect change. Booking for all Festival events will open on Monday 15 May.
Twitter hashtags for this event: #LSEFestival
Podcast and video
A podcast of this event is available to download from How Did Britain Come to This?
Podcasts and videos of many LSE events can be found at the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.