Working to make government more effective

Robert Hazell

Associate

Robert Hazell is Professor of Government and the Constitution in the School of Public Policy at UCL, having stepped down as Director of the Constitution Unit in 2015.

Robert started his career as a barrister. He joined the Home Office through the Civil Service Fast Stream and then became a senior civil servant, working in police, prisons, immigration, race relations and broadcasting.

After 14 years in Whitehall, Robert became Director of the Nuffield Foundation in 1989. He left the Nuffield Foundation to found the Constitution Unit in 1995. The Constitution Unit has produced over 150 reports on every aspect of constitutional reform in the UK, including devolution, freedom of information, parliamentary reform and Lords reform, elections and referendums, the Human Rights Act and new Supreme Court.

In 2009, Robert led a joint project with the Institute on hung parliaments and the challenges for Westminster and Whitehall, which helped Whitehall prepare for the 2010 election and its aftermath. He has written books on the impact of Freedom of Information on Whitehall (2010), on the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition (2012) and on special advisers (2014), and in 2017 he started a project studying the role of non-executive board members in Whitehall departments.

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