Simon Walker, Director General of the IoD:

"Businesses are compelled by necessity to respond to economic, technological and cultural changes. If they don't, they fail. In contrast, vast areas of government activity continues to operate as if it were immune from these pressures and considerations. There is a vital and exciting opportunity here to rethink the way in which government operates and there's no better starting place than looking at how business values efficiency, quality, accountability and value for money.

"GovernUp has an opportunity to radically reimagine the way in which our civil service and our institutions operate. I believe this is an idea whose time has come, and I look forward to the Institute of Directors being part of it."

John Cridland CBE, CBI Director-General:

“This is a welcome cross-party initiative to ensure our public services are fit for purpose for the twenty first century. This is particularly important at a time of austerity.”

Lord Browne of Madingley, former Chief Executive of BP, lead non-executive director for the Government and a member of GovernUp’s Advisory Board:

“The Civil Service now faces a fundamentally different environment and set of challenges to those for which it was designed. I have called in the past for an independent review of the future of the Civil Service, and so I am very pleased to be part of a project which will take on that task.”