Brussels again...

So tomorrow I'm off to Brussels again for another EU working group.

Yesterday and today I am finalising preparations for this (well, squeezing in the preparations for this around other work!). Having received an agenda of what's coming up, I'm making sure that I have as much information as possible on each of those subjects. This includes meeting with other government departments (OGDs - yet another acronym) such as DFID to check that I have a full grasp of our objectives for this meeting. For me, this is really fascinating, a great chance to step away from some of my more detailed day-to-day activities and an important chance to look at the wider picture and explore some of the key issues in greater depth. It also gives me the chance to go to DFID's offices (which are very nice!) and meet with some of my colleagues there. My role requires a lot of co-operation with other government departments - I have even recently initiated some fortnightly cross-Whitehall meetings that give desk officers at my level the chance to keep up to date with others' work and to ensure greater coordination across government. For me, as a newbie to the world of government, this has been great - a snapshot into the way organisations like DFID run and how interlinked their work is with that of the FCO, both in London and overseas.

Posted at 11:03 05 February 2008 by Sarah Russell  |  Comments[3]