Sarah Munby, the permanent secretary at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, speaking at Innovation 2024. Photo: Rob Greig
For individual civil servants, it’s entirely rational to minimise risk-taking, permanent secretary Sarah Munby told Innovation 2024 – but organisations must innovate and experiment if they are to succeed. How can this awkward circle be squared?
“We are right to be risk-averse about a huge amount of what we do,” said Sarah Munby, permanent secretary of the UK’s Department for Science, Innovation & Technology. This is not currently the acceptable public stance on risk, she told the audience at Global Government Forum’s Innovation 2024 conference. When leaders talk about promoting innovation and a more entrepreneurial, experimental culture, she said, the approved “lines on risk are obvious: ‘The greatest risk for government is that we don’t innovate; that we fail to make the change that will enable us to answer the really big questions… How can you be so risk-averse?’.”
Yet in Munby’s view, risk-aversion is entirely rational in the government context. “We should not be self-critical that we find ourselves operating in cultures…
