I’m delighted to see you all here today. As you know, I’ve been doing a bit of ‘interchanging’ of my own recently, moving from Northern Ireland to my new job as government co-ordinator.

So I’m well aware of the benefits of bringing fresh perspectives and new thinking to a job. In recent weeks I’ve felt like a bit of a one-woman change programme.

I believe in embracing new experiences and in learning from others - in order to make sure that we work as effectively as possible as a government.

Working together can give us the confidence to seek new challenges and to make sure we meet them. To shape your own and your organisation’s future.

And when it comes to my organisation – the civil service – Interchange is a great opportunity to make sure the we serve the people of Britain to the best of our abilities.

So what exactly is Interchange? Quite simply it’s about sharing people and sharing skills. It covers everything from 3-year secondments to the civil service from outside – and vice versa – right through to joint training and job shadowing opportunities.

Interchange is a way for organisations to plug skill gaps, develop flexibility and to Invest In People. And it is a way for people to learn new skills in a new environment. To broaden their outlook. Bring their expertise from one sector to another, and learn new skills to tackle old problems.

Of course, Interchange is not new. The civil service has had exchange programmes with Industry since the 70s. But what is new is our approach and our commitment to ensure that Interchange makes a difference.

We will do that by stepping up activity. The number of secondments between industry and the civil service has trebled over the last twenty years and I want to see that trend continue.

We don’t just want to get more people involved. We want to expand the types of interchange as well, ranging from front-line service delivery to policy formation. And including local government and the voluntary sector as well as the private sector.

It’s just as valuable to get someone in the City as a senior adviser to government departments as it is to have a junior official from the DETR to spend a year working with a voluntary organisation working on inner cities regeneration. Or to have an NHS Trust practitioner in Richmond House in the Department of Health in Whitehall.

And the extra work is already paying off - last year there were nearly a 1000 more secondments and attachments than when we came to power in 1997.

Interchange is another way of getting central and local government to work better together. We came together to run the successful Whitehall/Townhall scheme of attachments and secondments, which is now being expanded to include more local authorities.

Another successful example of Interchange in action is the Social Exclusion Unit.

The unit is staffed by a mixture of permanent civil servants and secondees from the voluntary and private sectors, all brought together to tackle crosscutting issues like truancy, homelessness and teenage pregnancy in a joined-up way - not just across Whitehall but across the country, right at the coal face - working together to work things out.

Social exclusion is one of our top priorities.

And as one of our top priorities, it’s important that we get people inside and outside of government working together more and more closely – so that we can have a real and meaningful impact on the ground to help the most marginalised and vulnerable people in our society.

As a whole, the civil service is changing. Sir Richard Wilson and his colleagues have been discussing a series of reforms to take the civil service into the 21^st Century.

That will involve a major change of culture in the Civil Service. Interchange will be a key component in making that change come about.

The Modernising Government White Paper made it clear that public services cannot stand still. The Government values public servants and shares their commitment to make a difference. But we all recognise that the Civil Service needs to change to reflect the changing needs of the society it serves.

Everywhere the world of work is changing – at a phenomenal pace. New information technology, new ideas about how organisations should be run, new ways of managing people. None of us can confidently predict what our working lives will be like in ten years time. Change is the only certainty – and we need to meet the challenges of change.

As we start our programme of reforms the Civil Service will need to become more open – both literally and metaphorically. We will need to be more open to new ideas, more innovative and creative and more ready to take risks and move away from the blame culture.

If the Civil service is to be seen as modern, we need to end the public image of civil servants as meddling Sir Humphreys and tea-drinking jobsworths.

But we need to get across to the general public that the civil service is an exciting and challenging place to work.

We also need to combat the legacy of the white, male, career civil servant. In the past the only way to join the Civil Service was either on the very bottom rung or as a fast-stream graduate.

Now we need to attract more people to the service at mid-career, especially where we have skills shortages and need the benefit of specialist skills and knowledge. Using the expertise gained outside government to make a difference inside government.

And there are plenty of people we can attract, who may not have thought of the civil service as a career option - particularly among women and ethnic minorities. We want to double the representation of women and ethnic minorities in five years.

Interchange is one way of helping attract a wider range of talent to the service and letting them see what it’s really like.

To help achieve this we are now finalising the appointment of a Senior Adviser. The Adviser’s role will include bringing in people from ethnic minorities and other under-represented groups on secondments and attachments.

It is only right that the Civil Service should be a part of, and not apart from, the society it serves. It needs to attract, retain and develop its fair share of the country’s talent, so that its workforce properly reflects the communities it serves.

The Civil Service reforms will stress how important it is to give Senior Civil Servants experience of working in another culture outside the civil service. It will also step up the recruitment and secondment of outsiders in a range of tasks spanning policymaking, service delivery and project management.

People like Jennifer Kirby, who I know is in the audience today. Jennifer, a specialist in business strategy and marketing, is on secondment from the Bradford and Bingley to Ordnance Survey. OS have become a trading fund and Jennifer’s role is to help them become customer-focused and successful in a highly competitive market. Tough work – I wish her success.

We also want to bring more people from outside onto the management board of departments. This has worked well in DfEE, MAFF and the Inland Revenue and from next year we want to see a non-executive director or adviser on every Departmental board.

Of course, our reforms will only work if we also look to the needs of our existing staff. Civil servants need to gain broader experience in the course of their careers. They have many talents and would be an asset to any organisation but they need exposure to different cultures to gain a better understanding of how what they do affects others and has an impact on the ground.

To this end we are committed to increasing departmental interchange targets for secondments in and out at all levels. It’s good for government, it’s good for business, and it’s good for the business of government.

So, I hope I have managed to convince you of the success and value of Interchange. Today’s turnout shows there is still a lot of enthusiasm and willingness to be involved. What we need to do now is to convert it into action.

I want to think about how you can contribute. Why not consider seconding a member of your staff to a Government Department for a short spell? Why not get involved in a joint training initiative with an Agency in the same business as yourself? Or why not consider bringing in a talented civil servant to offer a fresh perspective on your own business?

This is your opportunity to find out if all I have said about the Civil Service is true and to help influence how things develop in the future.