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]

The handover...

So this week I took over formally from my predecessor. One thing that has immediately struck me is how busy I am! Fortunately everyone around me, despite being hectic themselves, have really made time to explain things, and have been hugely patient with me.

Someone asked about the responsibilities I have as a new entrant. Well, thats something that has really surprised me - I have been given a lot of responsibility and a lot of freedom early on. Whilst that can be a bit scary, it has been great - I'm learning fast (I think!) and its great to be challenged from Day One. I am now a point of contact for key stakeholders outside of the office, such as NGOs and also work closely with other government departments, particularly DFID. I'm also doing a lot of liaison with the EU, which I am finding really interesting, if still a little confusing! I also work on briefings for Ministers and officials, which are often team projects. These can be really fascinating - learning to pitch briefings at the right level and thinking more about what information would really need to be included in a brief.

So, in essence, you really hit the ground running. You have to get over the grand building pretty fast (and learn your way round it, which I am still having issues with), and start getting stuck into meaningful work early on. Initially, I felt (and still do a bit really) that confidence was the biggest problem. I'm sure this isn't the case for everyone, but I was extremely nervous of putting a foot wrong, or not knowing enough about the detail of the issues to speak or write confidently about them. But as you work closely on the issues day in and day out, and get good exposure to all sorts of work early on, you really do learn fast, and slowly slowly that new-person-in-the-office feeling is starting to wear off!

Posted at 16:48 16 November 2007 by Sarah Russell  |  Comments[4]