I found myself then having to decide what approach to take when a journalist

and photographer appeared to interview me for an article in Whitehall and

Westminster World on our plans for Sustainable Development (SD). Cue a
happy 15 minutes in the cold outside Nobel House trying to get a decent photo
of me against our plaque as staff were seeking to get in to the building to do
their work. Oddly the photographer struggled to find my best angle and we
resorted to the old Harry Worth pose by the reflecting doors. Sadly neither the
journo nor Cate had a clue who Harry Worth was so only the photographer and I
could reminisce about good old British comedy.

The interview was enjoyable, at least for me, as we talked about our plans and
the need to bridge the gap between some of the SD community who palpably
failed to understand how government actually worked and some of government
who had not yet bought into the SD approach. Quite a challenge for Defra to
help broke that gap. But we agreed that we needed to go with the grain of
Whitehall and that a Commission of 70 people would always struggle to
influence five million public sector workers. We needed a new way forward and
a much more coordinated and layered approach. And our plans were taking us
there. Once the microphones and tape recorders were switched off we talked
about my past and totalitarian regimes. I feel ‘very lucky’ to have endured time
living under a dictatorship - it remains a life time reminder why we should
value what we have, and why the grace of the civil servant under constant fire
from public criticism is particularly to be valued.

And so to the ‘mauling’ in the lions’ den (or should that be servals’ den? I will
ask Alick to comment here on the credentials of servals as opposed to lions) of
the SDC Big Sustainability Summit. It would be fair to say that Ashley Cole gets
a more welcome greeting to the Arsenal than Government was ever likely to
get from a body we are closing down and whose approach we are
fundamentally changing. But Will Day, the Chair, was a charming and
courteous host as ever and kept the baying audience broadly in check as I
outlined how we were intending to take this forward. Will is a great character
and used to run the Children In Need appeal for the BBC. He knows his stuff. I
found myself cast in the role of pantomime villain and Sheriff of Nottingham as
we were explaining our plans alongside the Welsh Assembly Government
Minister for the Environment who decided to use the occasion to announce
what is broadly a Welsh version of the SDC with a statutory duty for SD, i.e.
pretty well an opposite approach to trying to achieve the same thing as we
are. Nothing wrong with that as there are different ways to do it, but it did lead
to constant clapping and standing ovations for her and stony silence and
muted shakings of the head for me. A bit like being on Question Time. Or at
tea with my kids and wife. To be honest I enjoyed the challenge as we are
doing the right thing in the right way at the right time. Or does that sound too
like Gaddafi? I will be saying that my people love me next, as Andrew L rather
cruelly pointed out to me.

But the SD mainstreaming is complex and we have a long way to go to get the
whole of Government working this way. How do you get 5 million public sector
workers thinking and working this way? I am comfortable we have got this one
in the right space as you have to go with the grain of the way Government
operates and against the backdrop of current realities, not Utopian ideals. The
BBC man rather plaintively told me that he was trying to get a story out of the
event, although he looked deeply comical in the front row holding up the
world’s biggest microphone like an ice cream cone, presumably so that the
quality of the sound will be up to it if he ever persuades an editor that there is
a story here. Odd life people lead who always seek conflict and criticism in
reporting on others. The Secretary of State had told me that I must be deeply
emollient and gracious in being attacked. She is spot on. Another virtue to add
to the Watmore list for public servants - grace under fire.

A glance at the Porridge blog leads to the usual conclusion from him that all
Ministers and civil servants are bad or mad. I get bored with such mindless
attacks on the public sector so was heartened to read an outstanding letter
from the Perm Sec in the centre, Ian Watmore. You should all read this and
enjoy the skewering of the notion that private sector is necessarily better or
more innovative. You should pin it up on your walls.

Right having attempted to keep a little discipline by checking all our team for
air rifles this morning I went off to breakfast with the Secretary of State, Lord
Henley and the Minister of State. We were entertaining the SDC Commissioners
to explain to them our plans for mainstreaming SD. Some good questions on
what we were trying to do despite disappointment that they are being wound
up and scepticism that we were getting it right. The most interesting question
was whether we as civil servants understood how to reconcile ‘wicked
problems’ by looking at it from all angles of SD, economically, environmentally,
socially, long-term versus short term. Actually this is what we are pretty good
at, to add to Ian Watmore’s list. We like to use evidence, to work through stuff,
to reconcile conflicts and to provide options. As long as the reconciliation of
those conflicts does not require an air rifle trained at new entrants I think we
are in the right space. Although it is a new performance management option
for our new Perm Sec.

Some of us then briefed the Secretary of State on our sustainable development

(SD) announcement today. She was on top form following what’s been a tough
period. Don’t try to be a Cabinet Minister unless you are resilient, as William
Hague was discovering this weekend with taking his turn to be criticised. To
get the announcement on SD right has required huge work from Jonathan and
his team over the last almost 9 months since we took the decision to withdraw
funding from the Sustainable Development Commission. The package we have
now put together is pretty powerful, attempting a whole new approach to
embedding sustainability in government thinking and policy making across the
board. One of the successes of the team is in getting the Secretary of State on
the Economic Affairs Committee chaired by the Chancellor, specifically so that
she can act as the champion of sustainability for all policies which come to that
Committee. Similarly in getting Oliver Letwin and the Cabinet Office to vet all
Structural Reform Plans to ensure that sustainability is part of the equation for
all OGDs. This will not resonate with the public but puts us right into the centre
of Coalition activity.

We will probably get attacked tomorrow by those who prefer centralised bodies
as well as government funded activity on top of government funded activity
and who prefer to carp from the sidelines rather than getting stuck in to
making a difference where a difference really can be made . But this should not
detract from the fantastic work of the team. From the creativity and
inventiveness of where they have gone on this and for their real care in
engaging with those we have needed to talk to about how to get the changes.