‘Real change takes courage’

We all know the massive changes facing our country, and indeed the world.

It can be tempting to pull the covers over our heads in the morning as we hear about the climate emergency, the instances of intimidation and fear being stirred up against new communities, and the huge changes that technological advances have brought and will continue to bring.

But, for real change to happen, we cannot simply pull the covers up. Real change takes courage, an appetite for risk and a willingness to tackle any challenges head on.

Ireland’s recent history shows that, as a nation, we are not risk averse, and that substantial and meaningful change can be made and embraced when brave decisions are taken.

The introduction of free second-level education in 1967, the arrival of the plastic bag levy in 2002, and the publication of the 2021 Climate Action Plan are all examples of historic milestones in public policy change, bringing with them the potential to have a long-lasting impact on the lives of every Irish citizen.

The pace of recent change has also accelerated, and with it the expectations of the public in terms of service delivery and accessibility.

However, to ensure we have public services that continue to meet the needs of people in our fast-evolving environment, we as public sector leaders will need to lead the way on this.

We will have to think ambitiously and be willing to drive the change that is needed.

We will also have to work together, because ambitious thinking requires joint decision-making and collaboration, both across the civil and public sector and across agencies.

Earlier this month, more than 100 of Ireland’s chief executives of state agencies, and senior public and civil service leaders came together in Athlone at the Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies in Ireland 2024 Conference, ‘Delivering for Ireland’s Future’. We heard from Irish and international specialists how we can best deliver a public service that meets the country’s current and future needs.

The role of risk and innovation, Ireland’s competitiveness in the international market, achieving value for the public, and the impact of the climate challenge and changing demographics were among the topics on the agenda over two days, underpinned by one over-arching question: what can we do together to deliver for the citizens of the future?

Ireland faces huge challenges in the coming years, and government agencies, as well as Government itself, will need to have the confidence and courage to take risks and to innovate if we are to meet them. And if we’re going to live up to our conference title and really deliver for Ireland’s future, it’s going to take a level of collaboration rarely seen on this island before.

There is tension between risk and innovation of course, but to truly innovate we have to have some acceptance of risk and some acceptance of potential failure. If we are to genuinely evolve, we need to be able to try things and share our learnings - the bad as well as the good. And as one of our speakers at the conference said, there are risks that are known but there are also uncertainties. We don’t always know what the future holds.

We must take the best and most informed approach that we can, otherwise we don’t move forward or we risk falling behind. Which is the bigger risk to our economy and our competitiveness?

Collaboration between agencies, government and private sector also has to be key to our future delivery. The Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies in Ireland was founded first as a networking and support organisation to allow for shared learning, and this remains core to our work and always will, but we too have evolved over the past years.

Covid forced us to become particularly agile, responding quickly to changing needs. Post-pandemic, we now need to continue bringing this flexibility and open-minded approach to our work every day, and I know we can rise to this challenge.

The October conference was an opportunity for a broad spectrum of public service leaders to hear from Irish and international experts, to learn from each other, and begin to collaborate on solutions to strengthen service delivery to the public.

While delegates of the Association of Chief Executives of State Agencies in Ireland represent a very diverse range of organisations, they have a lot in common, not least in terms of the pace of change that is impacting them.

At our conference, we listened, learned and engaged and, over the coming months, I hope the conversations we started and the work we did will better enable us to embrace the risk and innovation we need to apply in order to achieve public sector value, and deliver a new and collaborative strategy for Ireland’s future.

Learn more at www.acesa.ie