What Shapes Government Decision-Making?

What Shapes Government Decision-Making? A Conversation with Professor Ken Thomson CB

How are policy decisions actually taken within government, and how does the day-to-day work of government compare to formal accounts of evidence-led decision-making?

The Centre for Public Policy’s ECR Network is pleased to host an in-conversation event with Ken Thomson, former Director General for Strategy and External Affairs at the Scottish Government and one of the key architects of devolution.

Ken has extensive experience advising ministers and working at the intersection of politics, evidence, and public administration. Drawing on this experience, the discussion will explore how policy is developed and decisions are reached in practice and in real institutional and political contexts, compared to more abstract principles and paradigms of decision-making set out by commentators.

The conversation will compare decision-making in practice with theories of rational decision-making and its limits, and alternative perspectives which see governments as complex systems, and as arenas for negotiation. It will consider the roles played by ministers, officials and other advisers in gathering views and evidence, shaping advice, applying political judgement, reaching decisions and responding to parliamentary scrutiny.

For early career researchers, the event offers an opportunity to connect established ideas in policy studies and political science to lived experience inside government, and to reflect on what these insights mean for research design, theory-building, and engagement beyond academia.

The event will take the form of a moderated interview, followed by time for questions and discussion with the audience. It will be of interest to students, researchers, and others seeking a deeper understanding of how government decision-making works in practice.

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