Who I Am

Hello, I’m Tasha and I’m Deputy Director State Threats and Cyber at Ministry of Defence and have been a civil servant since 2008.  I’m motivated by trying to make policy work better – for operational colleagues, for effective, efficient and legal outcomes and ultimately to serve citizens as well as we can.

The Path That Led Me Here

I didn’t set out to be a civil servant – I was going to be an academic! But I realised that I didn’t just want to research and write; I wanted to still do that but make that work to identify problems – and solutions and to work with people to implement those! I knew it would have to be in public service and I aspired to do so in national security – problem was I had no idea how one did that – I didn’t know anyone who could guide me or tell me how to do that, so I just sort of followed my nose!

Getting My Foot in the Door

I actually started as a temp EO. I had held out for a role at the Home Office and was just about out of money and out of friend’s goodwill for crashing at theirs as I had the basic clearances, but I had to wait 2 months for further security clearances to start – and was on the verge of giving up.  I’m glad I held out though as I worked with policy and operational people on really challenging policy and my boss let me ‘do policy’ not just diary stuff! That led to a permanent role 6 months later and I was off!

A Day in My Life

Bit difficult to talk about as its all national security, but in short, I oversee MOD policy and operational policy around cyber and counter state operations. It’s about working with operational colleagues to ensure that the policy response sets and supports their ability to get after threats to the UK. Day to day its about supporting my team to do that. It’s also about thinking – setting out current and future problems – and identifying the right people to either help define that, or to work about the solutions – and how to implement them. I often describe my role as a translator – observing and listening to the  technical or operational detail and working out how that fits into – and impacts – a bigger strategic picture. I then, often with operational colleagues, look to set this out to seniors or other colleagues who won’t be as familiar with the detail, showing them how these fits with their priorities or their policy area.

Most exciting part of the role? Travel – though the novelty wears off at times – especially when you travel 14 hrs on a plane and only get to spend 24 hrs or less in the country, so not much sight seeing (but mostly, its exciting) Even more so when you are ‘the UK rep’ not bad for a girl from a small town!

Most unexpected part of the job(s) I have had? I’ve had some ‘ohhh!’ moments – truth definitely is stranger than the fiction you see on tv and read sometimes. Otherwise, I now know that submarines are boats. Not ships. Boats.

Lessons That Shaped My Career

Realising that because I don’t have a ‘typical’ CS background, it didn’t make me less capable or ‘less’ civil servant, it made me, if not better, just as able as others who had been fast streamers and had the solid, middle class Oxbridge type backgrounds I first worked with.  It took a number of years to realise this; I had come from a pretty solid working-class background, been mature student and had other roles teaching, in mental health and hospitality before landing in the civil service and for a good few years felt that I wasn’t seen to be as ’civil servant’ as others. Then I realised, not being ‘atypical’ (for my early career at least) was actually a bit of a superpower – I had lived experience, I thought more broadly than others on problems, I took the time to get to know what it was like for the operational community so that I could draft better policy advice. Once I had that realisation, I stopped worrying so much what others thought and was, I feel more authentic at work – and I think that helped me progress.

Other lessons? Being – and staying curious – it’s where I get my energy from and being curious means, I have taken the time to understand more about the policy areas I have worked on, it has led me to roles I didn’t know existed and it has, I think made me a better policy professional!

What I Wish I Knew Earlier

Tasha’s top five tips:

1. If you can’t get in through the front door (e.g. Fast Stream) then go through the side door – the civil service is VAST – job centres, courts, customs, agriculture, defence! As ‘Whitehall’ entry jobs are so rarely advertised for direct entry, then ‘going sideways’ gives you access to the much richer range of internal civil service jobs – and you’ll be building key skills as you go!
2. Skills are transferable – you just need to translate them – Seeing the bigger Picture – that job you had in an office where you realised that your apparently random task was actually really important to the business meeting a key goal – that’s bigger picture. Communicating and influencing – setting out why that difficult customer could’/could not get a refund – you explained the legal and store policy, you set the case out to the manager – with the right result – that’s communicating and influencing.
3. Civil service jobs is AMAZNG for showing you just how diverse the range of jobs there are (seriously, there’s a bee keeping policy role!) not only does it show you what roles there are, but also what skills and experience that grade or that type of role requires.
4. Want to travel the world – get in early – easier to get those jobs (and keep getting them from an early grade.
5. Be curious – ask people what they do,  how they do it, how they got there – most people will be happy to share that!