Simon James

Simon James worked for 20 years in London local government, the UK Department for Education, the Cabinet Secretariat (working on the Blair government's constitutional reform programme) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.

Since 2001 he been a freelance adviser to governments in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, funded mainly by the World Bank and the British government. He specialises particularly in the reform of Prime Ministers' Offices and Cabinet Secretariats; he also works on all aspects of political and civil service reform. His most recent assignments have been in the Western Balkans, Somaliland and Mongolia.

Simon has been a Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London since 2015. He has published many articles in academic journals and has authored research reports for the OECD and the World Bank.