This episode is brought to you by EY. EY combines private sector leading practices with an understanding of the public sector's diverse needs, focusing on building organizations' capabilities to deliver improved public services. We are inspired by a deep commitment to help you meet your goals and enhance public value, for today and tomorrow.
Episode Overview
This episode is a global webinar “sneak peek” into EY’s first Future-Fit Public Sector Workforce research, delivered with partners Apolitical and the London School of Economics. Chaired by Josie Cluer (EY Global Government & Infrastructure Workforce and Citizens Leader), the session shares early headline findings from a survey of 15,000+ public servants across ~29 countries, supported by interview insights.
The conversation, also led by analyst Kate Delgado Kaiser, EY Global Government & Infrastructure Sector Insights Senior Analyst with valuable contributions from Robyn Scott, CEO & Co-Founder, Apolitical and Alexander Evans, Associate Dean for Strategic Development, School of Public Policy, London School of Economics, explores a consistent tension: public servants feel cautiously positive about how their organisations perform today, but far less confident about whether leadership, capability, and operating models are ready for what comes next - especially as AI and wider disruption accelerate.
Key themes / takeaways
- Cautious optimism, but weakening future confidence: many respondents rate current effectiveness positively, yet fewer believe leaders and operating models are ready for future challenges.
- A leadership trust gap: leaders often rate organisational effectiveness higher than frontline staff; senior managers sit in the “pressure point” between ambition and operational reality.
- Practical blockers dominate: confidence drops due to very tangible constraints - strategic direction, funding uncertainty, collaboration, adaptability, and delivery capacity.
- People + technology must be treated as one agenda: “transformational technology” and “people” emerge as the most urgent pillars - tech without skills, trust, and ways of working can add complexity rather than reduce it.
- AI adoption is broad, not deep: use skews toward personal productivity vs. operating-model change; progress requires co-creation with the workforce, iterative pilots, and the discipline to stop low-value experiments.
- What “good” looks like: closing the gap between AI pilots and data readiness; investing in management capability; balancing “painkiller” use cases (overburdened services, fraud detection) with “vitamin” opportunities (new value citizens didn’t expect).
Why you should listen
If you lead workforce, transformation, digital/data/AI, or organisational change in government, this episode offers a clear global snapshot of where confidence is holding - and where it’s fraying. It also provides practical guidance on what to prioritise next: leadership capability, credible delivery, co-creation with staff, and treating workforce transformation and technology transformation as inseparable.
Help your peers
Share what you've learned with fellow public servants