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Paul Hackett
Director

Paul has overall responsibility for the Institute's programme of research and events. He was previously Special Adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott MP and other ministers at the Department of Communities and Local Government (1997-05). Paul has worked in various policy areas including, sustainability, industry and finance, regulation, housing and regeneration, cities and urban policy, planning, regional policy, local government, third sector, and public-private partnerships. Paul previously worked for the Financial Times, the Economist Group, Trades Union Congress, and the Parliamentary Labour Party under the late John Smith. He was also adviser to the House of Commons Trade & Industry Select Committee, EU, OECD, ILO, UN, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and Dun & Bradstreet International.

Email Paul at paul.hackett@smith-institute.org.uk

Paul Hunter
Head of Research

Paul’s main area of responsibility is coordinating the research and production of the Institute’s publications. Prior to joining the Smith Institute Paul worked for an MP. At the Smith Institute he has edited a collection of essays on social enterprises and has written reports on the 2010 general election, the 2011 local elections, and a profile of MPs. Paul has also brought together numerous other publications on a wide range of public policy issues.

Email Paul at paul.hunter@smith-institute.org.uk

Natalia Raha
Events and Communications Manager

Natalia is the Smith Institute’s Events and Communications Manager. She is in charge of organising and running the Institute’s events programme and communications strategy.

Email Natalia at natalia.raha@smith-institute.org.uk

Kitty Ussher
Research Fellow

Kitty Ussher is an economist and former Labour party politician. From 2007-09 she held ministerial positions in the Treasury (twice) and the Department for Work and Pensions, most notably as Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the early phase of the financial crisis. Her government experience also includes three years as special adviser to the then Department for Trade and Industry on industrial and trade policy, from 2001-04. As MP for Burnley from 2005-10 she helped get a university, new schools, better housing and a new health centre as well as starting the ultimately successful campaign for a direct train line to Manchester. She’s also been a councillor in Lambeth from 1998-2002 where she chaired the finance and environment scrutiny committees. She holds degrees in economics from Balliol College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, London and previously worked as an economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Centre for European Reform and Britain in Europe where she was the chief economist for the pro-European campaign group. Her interests include all areas of industrial, regional, welfare and economic policy including macroeconomics, financial services and government finance. After stepping down at the 2010 general election she wrote four pamphlets on economic and industrial policy as Director of the think-tank Demos before moving to the Smith Institute in January 2012.

Michael Ward
Research fellow

Michael Ward specializes in local and regional economic development and regeneration. From 1981 to 1986 he chaired the Industry and Employment Committee of the Greater London Council, setting up the Council’s economic development programme, and establishing Greater London Enterprise. In 1985-6, he was Deputy Leader of the GLC. From 1987 to 2000, Michael lived and worked in Manchester, as Director of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, a public policy, research and consultancy organisation, working on economic development. In 2000, he was appointed the first Chief Executive of the London Development Agency, London’s RDA, where he led the preparation of the Mayor’s Economic Strategy, and secured the initial commitment of the LDA Board to back the London Olympic Bid. Michael now works as a consultant, and is also the non executive chair of the Board of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. He has a first degree in Philosophy Politics and Economics from Oxford University, and an MA in Social and Economic History from Birkbeck University of London.

David Coats
Research fellow

David Coats is recognised as an expert commentator on employment relations and quality of working life issues, drawing on his experience at the TUC and The Work Foundation. His publications include: An Agenda for Work: The Work Foundation’s Challenge to Policy Makers; Speaking Up! Voice Industrial Democracy and Organisational Performance; Good Work: Job Quality in a Changing Economy; The National Minimum Wage: Retrospect and Prospect; Migration Myths: Employment, Wages and Labour Market Performance; Raising Lazarus: The Future of Organised Labour (Fabian Society) and Advancing Opportunity: The Future of Good Work (ed) (Smith Institute). From 1999-2004 he was Head of the TUC’s Economic and Social Affairs Department managing work on economic and industrial policy, the welfare state, public services and the development of partnership at work, having first joined the TUC in 1989 as an employment law specialist. In 2004 he became Associate Director at The Work Foundation. He was educated at Portway Comprehensive School, Bristol and then read Law at University College, London receiving an LL.B in 1983 and an LL.M in 1986. He completed his Bar Finals at the Inns of Court School of Law in 1984 and was called to the Bar in 1985. David was a member of the Low Pay Commission from 2000-2004 and was appointed to the Central Arbitration Committee (the industrial court for Great Britain) in 2005. He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Involvement and Participation Association, a number of academic advisory panels and the steering committee of Unions 21. From 1990-98 he was a councillor (Labour) in the London Borough of Haringey and served as a governor of local primary schools over the same period. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Nick Johnson
Research fellow

Nick is a leading writer and commentator on issues of integration, equality and. Cohesion. He contributes regularly to books, journals and magazines on a wide range of subjects including integration, multiculturalism, social capital, cohesion, citizenship and race equality. Nick has recently completed a new pamphlet for the Fabian Society on what integration means and how it can be measured and was commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to develop a conceptual framework for ‘good relations’. Between 2004-7, he was the Director of Policy and Public Sector for the Commission for Racial Equality where he led the development of the CRE’s policy agenda. He was also responsible for managing the Commission’s relationship with the public sector and monitoring the performance of all public authorities with regards to race equality. In 2007, he joined the Institute of Community Cohesion as Director of Policy where he leads on policy development and public affairs. He is also the co-editor of the new Cohesion Journal. Prior to joining the CRE, he was a Consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and before that, he was at the Association of London Government, where he was responsible for corporate and strategic policy. Nick is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts and a member of the Ethnicity Advisory Group for the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study.

Chris Wales
Research fellow

Chris Wales is a member of the Advisory Board of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation which he helped to set up in 2005 and a member of the IFS Council. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Tax Law at Cambridge Universityand editorial consultant to International Tax Review. He edited the Smith Institute’s monograph Fair Tax: towards a modern tax system in 2008. He has written widely on tax policy issues for both the national and the professional press. He contributed to a Smith Institute monograph on Public-Private partnerships and to a Fabian Society publication on the reform of Inheritance Tax. Chris has a doctorate in medieval history from Cambridge University. He joined Arthur Andersen from Cambridge in 1979 and later worked as a tax partner in both London and Stockholm before moving to HM Treasury. Between 1997 and 2003 he was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers at HM Treasury and principal adviser on taxation policy to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown MP. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2004 as a Managing Director. In 2006, he co-founded Lucida plc and was Managing Director until 2009.

John Tizard
Research fellow

John Tizard is an independent strategic advisor and commentator on public policy and public services. He works with a range of public, third, social, trade union and business sector, and academic organisations providing strategic advice and challenge with a specific focus on collaboration and partnership, service delivery and re-modelling, strategic development of practice, and new service models. He mentors and facilitates leadership programmes. He regularly comments, writes and speaks on public policy and public services issues in the UK and internationally. Previously John was the founding Director of The Centre for Public Service Partnerships which he established at the University of Birmingham in 2008. He left the Centre in December 2011.John was a senior director at the Capita Group plc from 1997 to 2007 where he held a number of different roles and for 8 years until December 2007 served as Director of Government and Business Engagement where he had responsibility for The Capita Group’s public sector strategy and strategic relations with Government, the wider public sector and other national public policy bodies in the UK and internationally.John was from 2002 to 2006 a member of the CBI’s Public Services Strategy Board and for five months in 2005 he undertook the role of Director of Public Services at the CBI on a seconded part time interim basis.

Prior to this he was a director at Scope (1977 – 1997) where he had strategic, policy and operational responsibilities. He led cross-agency collaboration and founded the Voluntary Disability Organisations Group (VODG). John had over 18 years' experience as a Labour county councillor from 1981 - 1999, was a group leader for 14 years and for over 8 years the joint leader of Bedfordshire County Council. He served on national and European local government bodies. He has been a non-executive director of a NHS trust and served on a police authority as well as having been a school governor and a director of housing association. John currently holds several non-executive and trustee appointments including: navca, Tomorrow’s People, the Adventure Capital Fund, the Social Investment Business and Action Space. He is also a Governor of the Island of Portland Aldridge Academy. He is an H0norary Fellow at the University of Birmingham and a Visiting Fellow at the London South Bank University. John is also a Fellow of the RSA. John has an honors degree B.Sc (Econ) from the London School of Economics.

Andy Rumfitt
Research fellow

An economic geographer and planner Andy specialises in the analysis of regional and local economies and the integration of economics, transport, planning and business development issues. He has nearly 20 years experience in providing professional advice to support the submission of major planning applications for rail, infrastructure and mixed use projects, in developing economic and planning policy, in assessing the impacts of physical developments and in designing practical interventions that support the local business base. He has worked with a wide range of clients including Communities and Local Government, the Northern Way, Regional Development Agencies, Local Authorities, Urban Development Corporations, Business Links and Transport Agencies such as the Docklands Light Railway and Transport for London.

For the Improvement and Development Agency he has identified Local Authority best practice in a number of areas including joint working in economic development, planning, highways procurement, voluntary sector networking, health, crime and sustainability. He recently helped the LDA to develop economic and planning policy for Outer London as part of the Mayor's Outer London Commission. He is currently advising the LDA, SEEDA and EEDA in the selection of areas for joint working across the £532 billion Greater South East economy and helping Transport for London to develop a range of river crossing options for east London.

Andy has Masters degrees from Cambridge and Reading Universities and a prize winning MBA from Imperial College, London University. He was appointed to the Policy Council of the Town and Country Planning Association in 2009. He is a Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and the Institution of Economic Development in addition to being an Associate Member of the Market Research Society.

As a CABE Enabler for the Thames Gateway he helped to deliver identity and placemaking workshops across all organisations responsible for the Thames Gateway Delivery Plan and was a member of CABE's international Strategic Urban Design Panel (2007-2009). He was recently appointed as a design quality enabler for Transform South Yorkshire, the largest housing market renewal programme in England.

Denise Chevin
Research fellow

Denise Chevin has nearly 20 years’ experience as a journalist, six of those editing one of the UK’s leading business titles, Building Magazine and its web site Building.co.uk which she joined in 2004. Before that she revamped and edited the social housing magazine, Housing Today. Under both of these editorships, Denise steered the titles and its journalists to win a several PPA awards for both print and on-line. And during this time Denise regularly chaired conferences, spoke at debates and contributed to radio and TV. Denise has had a long association with the Smith Institute, heading monographs on PFI and Public Procurement; and the Planning system. Since leaving Building in July 2010 Denise has embarked on a career as a freelance writer and consultant in the built environment. In this time she has written for a range of publications including Property Week and Times Educational Supplement, and advised a number of organisations including the charity, the Construction Youth Trust. She is also acting editor of Construction Manager magazine, standing in for the editor while she is on maternity leave. She was President of the International Building Press until June 2011; has been a Trustee of the company pension fund and a member of the editorial training panel of the Periodical Training Council. She graduated from Manchester University with a degree in chemistry.

The Smith Institute is a not-for-profit company (registered as SI Research Limited 07098225)

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non partisan public policy think tank | progressive think tank

Additional Information, Read Below.

Public Policy

Public policy concerns the ideas and actions that government (at all levels) and the public sector more broadly undertakes. The actions are attempts to improve an aspect of public life. These actions take various forms and are undertaken by various government bodies and agencies. Such actions vary from passing or repealing a law, cutting or investing in a particular service, to less tangible actions such as calling for people to act in a certain way. Public policy involves consideration of a myriad of factors. These can include the impact on the economy, on individual behaviour, on equity, and on the law. Consideration is often made to the potential un/popularity of the policy. This is not only important for politicians but also the policy’s successful implementation by public servants. New policies also try to change a particular issue ideologically close to those implementing it. For example, a trade off may be made so the health budget receives increased funding whilst the defence budget is cut. Public policy has increasingly become evidenced based. With greater scrutiny and large sums of money involved, policy decisions have to be able to withstand close examination. In many cases government has chosen to scrutinise and evaluate a proposed policy by running a pilot scheme. Given the drive for efficiency and accountability public funded bodies and services have increasingly had to provide statistics on productivity and effectiveness. This complex dynamic between ideology, vested interests, electoral popularity and effectiveness impacts on every decision taken

Growing importance of Public Policy

The importance of public policy has increased as democracy and the state have expanded. Over recent years, the UK government’s expenditure has been around 40% of GDP (peaking during recessions and national crises before subsiding – at its highest it reached 61% in 1942 to 1944). As the public has demanded more action the state has played an ever larger role in attempting to cure societal ills. Not only has the state increased in size since the turn of the twentieth century but expectations have become greater. In recent years public services have come under pressure to deliver greater choice and freedom to citizens who have experienced higher standards of living and who are no longer willing to accept ‘one-size fits-all’ provision. This has meant greater efficiency savings and smarter public policy to deliver the kinds of services people expect. The complexities of public service delivery are only one aspect of the policy debate. With the importance of policy to the economy, business has looked to government to provide the right environment for growth so that they can compete with international firms. Such policy implications include government policy on education, health, rates of tax, labour flexibility, immigration and regulation to name but a few. Policy is also important for those campaigning on issues around poverty, international development, civil liberties, life chances and the environment. With so many different interests and such high expectations the importance of policy has never been greater or, indeed, more complex.

Independent Think Tank

Given the complexities of public policy formulation and implementation, government (and public agencies) have increasingly looked to independent research organisations to inform and improve their accountability, decision making and management. Research think tanks fill the gap between academia and the political world. By giving a platform to new thinking they offer government alternative approaches to policy formulation. They not only offer new approaches but actively try to influence decision making by engaging politicians. In parallel to this, public policy think tanks use the media to apply pressure on government and the opposition to support a particular proposal. These proposals for improved policy come out of research undertaken and events held. Research can vary in form. Often reports are drafted by individual researchers but publications can also consist of edited chapters on a particular theme or a report based on deliberation from an esteemed group of panellists. Effective research is evidenced based rather than purely ideological. Given the complexity of policy making, substantive evidence has to be in place to back up any recommendations. Publications are not only written by researchers, but can also be penned by academics, opinions formers, chief executives, decision makers, trade unionists, leaders from the third sector, civil servants, politicians, and journalists. In addition to research, events are held to debate and discuss issues. These can come in the form of roundtable discussions, seminars, conferences and lectures. By discussing issues with stakeholders it is hoped that a more rounded and nuanced approached to a policy can be found.

Nonpartisan Public Policy Think Tank

The number of nonpartisan think tanks has increased with the professionalisation of politics and growth of single issue campaigns. Most are not-for-profit organisations, independent, nonpartisan and free from government. They rely on grants, donations and contracts for funding. By being independent views and recommendations are more likely to be trusted. Independence is also important in engaging stakeholders. An open forum allows freedom to express new ideas and approaches to policy free of party dogma and politicking. Nonpartisan political think tanks offer new insights and thought leadership on public policy issues. Although think tank research is evidence based and independent there is often ideological bias in what is produced. In the world of policy and politics more broadly nothing can be said to be ideologically neutral. With so many influences, interests and beliefs policy cannot be value free. In reality policy has some normative foundation from which choices and trade offs are made. Research think tanks in the UK tend to have some form of political motivation. Broadly speaking they are either progressive or conservative so come at policy from a particular angle. Whilst this is true of some others look at a single policy areas such as the King’s Fund on health, the Institute for Fiscal Studies on economic analysis, and Chatham House on foreign affairs. Regardless of their particular agenda almost all are nonpartisan, with exceptions including the Fabian Society which is affiliated to the Labour Party or the Bow Group which has links with the Conservative Party.

Progressive Think Tanks

Progressive think tanks, like the Smith Institute, focus their work on issues around social justice, sustainability, equality and fairness. Progressive polices have traditionally looked at how we counter social exclusion to create a fairer more equal society. Progressives believe that by harnessing and shaping the power of the market the interests of the many can be best served. At the heart of progressive thought is the idea that individuals are social beings, and that through mutual endeavour social and economic problems can be overcome. Thus there is emphasis on collaboration rather than just individual action. Given the importance of cooperation issues around democracy and empowerment are stressed. There is also the belief that by being fairer society will also be more prosperous. By having fair provision of social goods the work force will be educated and healthy which will benefit the economy. A fairer society is not only good for the economy but also the individual whose capabilities can best be realised and sense of wellbeing increased. Progressives also stress the importance of sustainability and international development. Not only are these economic necessities they are moral issues as they allow opportunity to be extended to others – be it those in developing nations or to future generations. Modern centre-left thought is not merely about resource distribution but also about shaping institutions, policies and behaviour for the benefit of all. These norms shape the perspectives that progressive research takes. As such research often looks at issues such as health or education through the lens of social justice or equality

The Smith Institute

The Smith Institute is a leading nonpartisan public policy think tank which promotes progressive policies for a fairer society. We provide a high-level forum for new thinking and debate on public policy and politics. Through our research, reports, briefings, monographs, events, lectures, education, and our website, the Institute offers a platform for thought leadership on a wide range of topics. We are interested not only in innovation and new ideas but also in how to translate policy into practice. Founded in 1996 in memory of the late Rt. Hon. John Smith MP, the former leader of the Labour Party who had an all pervading passion for social justice, the Institute seeks to engage politicians, decision makers, practitioners, academia, opinion formers and commentators. The Institute’s activities are informed by a network of well known experts, policy makers, research fellows and patrons. Based in London, the Institute is a not for profit organisation which works in partnership with a range of public and private organisations, other nonpartisan political think tanks, foundations and charities. The Smith Institute has an excellent track record in influencing and shaping public policy, and extensive national and international contacts. Over the last decade we have held over 500 events and published more than 150 reports, with contributions from Prime Ministers and MPs to archbishops and chief executives. The Institute’s work strands include: economy and finance; government and politics; sustainability; business and third sector; local government, cities and regions; housing and regeneration; education and families; health and wellbeing; and EU and international.

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