Training and retaining public servants for the future

This paper brings together the fundamental themes of the joint keynote talk delivered by Karen Johnston and Andrew Massey at the Transylvanian International Conference in Public Administration, 5th-8th October 2024, at Babes-Bolyai University on the theme of University – community relationship. Part of this is also a refinement of Johnston’s (2023) paper on a New Public Service Bargain. It commences with a discussion of the contemporary concerns surrounding training and development of UK civil servants and then explores the concept and elaboration of a New Public Service Bargain suggesting that governments recognize and value public servants because it is the human resource capacity of the state that is key to addressing crises and wicked policy problems.