On Friday 30th August, along with the other UK Young Ambassadors I visited the Dept for Education in London. We met with Andrew McCulley, a Senior Civil Servant in the Department. He gave us an introduction to the work that they do and how things have changed under a new Secretary of State, Michael Gove, and of course Lib Dem ministers. He spoke about how they try to find common ground on many issues, and are very successful in doing so. The DfE have been asked to plan for a 10% departmental budget cut. The Dept is very keen to "de-centralise" control, following ten years of a Labour government doing the exact opposite.
Following Andrew's introduction, the UKYAs presented on the various conferences and events that they'd attended around the world. Myself, Ben and Jess also spoke about the World Youth Congress, which we were travelling to the following morning. The reps from the DfE were very impressed and clearly very interested in the work that we do. Indeed, we agreed that there should be a stronger and closer relationship between the UKYA programme and the DfE.
We then heard from Fiona Coughlan, Education,Youth,Culture,Audiovisual and Sports Attaché at the EU. She explained how the EU works and the different institutions that exist in Europe. However, she primarily spoke about her own role and how she got involved with the FCO and the Civil Service. Fiona suggested that we visit her in Brussels, in order to truly understand the work that she does so watch this space....
We briefly heard about the Fast Stream programme. It is a fast track into the UK Civil Service, if you're interested check out their website :http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/jobs/faststream/index.aspx
After the formal discussions, we had the chance to have an informal chat with the different reps from various departments and organisations that had come along.
It was a very insightful visit and one which we really enjoyed.
Thanks DfE!
