Stephen Kelly

To say we had to measure.

So number one, we had a vision.

Number two, and that was a vision for Britain, why it's important, why we need to save money.

And then we connected it to real life stuff.

So we said every 10 billion pound we save is half a million junior nurses salaries per year.

It's three million primary school places.

Yeah, it's like a massive impact on the fire services.

And it gives the Chancellor of the Exchequer huge latitude if we're making great savings in the civil service and public service.

Number one, to improve the services, but most importantly, to actually give the Chancellor latitude to invest in public services that we're all proud of.

And that's the genesis of why we started in the civil service in the first place.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Definitely.

And before I joined, this is back in probably about 2010-ish, just around this sort of election period.

I worked years back in the 80s for a guy called Peter Gershon.

And he was chairman of Taylor and all these great things.

But he'd done, I think, with Michael Barber in the Blair government, a similar role in about 2000.

And I said, Peter, you know, what's it like?

Because I have witnessed, because I've done stuff with the government, some amazing people from the private sector.

literally go back into government and sort of become zombies within six months, just lose their spark and energy.