Conor Ryan (consultant)

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Conor Ryan
Director of External Relations at the Office for Students
In office
2018–2023
Preceded byPosition established
Personal details
Born1963
Dublin, Ireland
Political partyIrish Labour Party (until 1984)
British Labour Party (since 1984)
Alma materUniversity College Dublin (BA and MA)
Profession
  • Journalist
  • writer
  • consultant
WebsiteOfficial blog

Conor Ryan (born 1963)[a] is an Irish-born UK-based[2] independent writer and consultant, a former senior civil servant,[3] and adviser who was until June 2023 the Director of External Relations at the Office for Students, a non-departmental public body of the British Department for Education. He served as a special adviser and the senior education adviser to British Secretary of State for Education and Employment David Blunkett from 1997 to 2001[b] and then to British Prime Minister Tony Blair from 2005 to 2007.

Early life[edit]

Ryan was born in 1963 [a] in Dublin, Ireland.[2] He attended University College Dublin, where he gained a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in political science.[4] After graduating, Ryan moved to England in 1984 as an economic migrant[5][6] and began working as a communications officer at the British Youth Council. He then worked at the Inner London Education Authority as a schools press officer,[7][6] which gave him expert knowledge in the field of education.[8] He remained in this position until 1989 and then worked as a press officer at the Association of London Authorities in the early 1990s.[9]

Political career[edit]

In Ireland, Ryan had been part of the Labour Left faction of the Irish Labour Party which was critical of the coalition supported by party leader Dick Spring. This was a reforming left-wing faction of the party. After coming to Britain, Ryan was involved with the British Labour Party. He became chairman of the Constituency Labour Party in Mitcham and Morden and sat on the Labour Co-ordinating Committee, a Blairite faction of the party that supported Tony Blair's goal of party modernisation.[6]

In 1993, Ryan became Shadow Secretary of State for Health David Blunkett's policy aide, political spokesman and senior political adviser.[6][5][10] Labour, which was led by party leader John Smith, was the largest opposition party in parliament and therefore shadowed the governing Conservative Party led by Prime Minister John Major. Smith died in 1994 and Tony Blair was elected the new Labour leader. Blair intended to modernise the party under his New Labour project which moved it from the left to the centre-ground.[11] Ryan was a party loyalist under Blair's tenure and was considered a "firm favourite" among the inner circles of New Labour.[5] Ryan became Blunkett's senior education adviser in 1994;[12] Blunkett was re-elected to the shadow cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment.[13] With the consultation of Blair's advisers, they co-authored several important documents on policy which eventually formed the basis of education policy in the early years of the New Labour government. Examples include Excellence for Everyone and Diversity and Excellence.[14] He worked with Blunkett and the rest of his team, David Miliband and Michael Barber, to build New Labour's education policy.[15][16]

When Labour was elected into government in 1997, Ryan followed Blunkett into the Department for Education and Employment.[17] From this point, Ryan was Blunkett's special adviser.[18] He and Sophie Linden worked closely with Blunkett's other advisers, including Hilary Benn and Nick Pearce.[19] Ryan worked with Miliband, Barber and Stephen Byers to draw up the new government's education white paper.[20] One of the government's priorities was modernising the education system by turning comprehensive schools into specialist schools. Ryan was one of the main leaders of this policy alongside Miliband, Barber and advisers Andrew Adonis and Cyril Taylor.[21] He was also responsible with Blunkett and Barber for the creation of the Standards and Effectiveness Unit, a somewhat independent ministerial unit within the Department for Education and Employment responsible for notifying local authorities of government policy and its effects on them.[22] He became Blunkett's chief of staff[23] and spin-doctor,[24] becoming known as Blunkett's own Alastair Campbell.[5]

In December 1999, Ryan left his post as Blunkett's adviser to manage Frank Dobson's successful bid to be selected as Labour's candidate in the 2000 London mayoral election. He became the spin-doctor for Dobson's campaign but fell ill from appendicitis in January 2000, before returning to the Department for Education and Employment upon his recovery.[25][26] He was the second spin-doctor to drop out of Dobson's campaign.[27] The Guardian's George Low suggested that Blunkett had allowed Ryan to manage Dobson's bid temporarily.[28] After Labour's victory in the 2001 general election, Blunkett was promoted to the Home Office as Secretary of State for the Home Department and Ryan ceased to be his adviser and became an independent writer and consultant.[29]

After the 2005 general election, Ryan succeeded Andrew Adonis as Prime Minister Tony Blair's senior education adviser.[30][31][32] He was also employed as one of Blair's special advisers and joined the Number 10 Policy Unit under David Bennett,[33] serving as its education adviser.[34] His appointment was well received among leaders in the teaching profession, including by the National Union of Teachers.[35] Ryan was given responsibility for building support in the Parliamentary Labour Party for Blair's controversial Education and Inspections Bill.[36] The Bill was approved by parliament in May 2006 but only due to Conservative support.[37] He was also a major figure in devising Labour's campaign strategy against Conservative leader David Cameron.[36] Ryan remained an adviser to the Prime Minister until 2007.[38]

Following Gordon Brown's resignation as Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister in May 2010, Ryan believed that Labour's next leader had to be someone "who can craft an approach to opposition and a plan for government that moves beyond New Labour, but which doesn't ignore the lessons that allowed 13 years in government". He added: "The person most likely to offer that balance is David Miliband."[39] Ryan had worked with Miliband from 1994 when he was David Blunkett's education adviser.[15] Miliband would lose narrowly to his brother Ed Miliband in 2010's Labour leadership election.

In February 2011, Ryan followed Andrew Adonis in supporting the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government's free schools policy and criticised Labour's shadow secretary of state for education Andy Burnham for opposing it.[40] He also supported the coalition's other educational reforms such as qualification reform.[41] He did however find the coalition's economic policy very concerning.[42]

Writing and journalism[edit]

As a student in Ireland in the 1980s, Ryan used to write letters to The Irish Times. The subjects of these letters ranged from the Militant Tendency to film censorship.[43] He was also a regular contributor to the Evening Press and Irish Independent. Before 1993 and in the early 2000s he was also a journalist for The Independent, The Guardian, Daily Mail, TES, New Statesman and Evening Standard.[21] By 1997, he had also written for Tribune.[1] He became an independent writer in 2001 and wrote in Irish and British national media[9] about education and Irish politics.[43] He continued to write for most of his old employers.[44][45][46][47][48] Other publications that Ryan has written for include The Sunday Times[49] and Public Finance.[50]

Ryan has also written multiple educational books.[51] In 2002, Ryan wrote the short book Freedom from Failure for the Centre for Policy Studies. It argued that the reforms to education of the previous fifteen years had to go further, with "radical solutions" such as closing more failing schools being proposed.[52] In 2004, he edited Bac or Basics: challenges for the 14–19 curriculum[53] and co-authored, with Cyril Taylor, Excellence in Education: The Making of Great Schools.[54] His 2008 publication Staying the Course: Changes to the Participation Age and Qualifications is a collection of essays from educationists featuring Mike Tomlinson, Michael Barber, Alison Wolf, Alan Smithers and Mike Baker. The essays covered the Brown ministry's plans to raise the school-leaving age and reform qualifications and discussed the benefits and downsides of these plans.[55] Ryan also wrote in Academies, a 2008 book produced by think tank CentreForum that recommended the expansion of the academies programme to the primary school sector. Other people who wrote in the book included Andrew Adonis, Paul Marshall and Anthony Seldon.[56] Ryan has written for other think tanks including the Social Market Foundation.[9] He is also the co-author of the 2011 book Lessons for Life with Sue Langmead.[57]

Other ventures[edit]

In 2002, Ryan became a school governor at Wellsway School, Keynsham, England.[7] He is a director at the Futura Learning Partnership (formerly the Wellsway Multi-Academy Trust)[58][59] and is chairman of its education and standards committee.[60]

Ryan became an independent consultant from 2001 to 2005 and 2007-2012and began to work for education organisations such as the Sutton Trust.[9] He became Director of Research and Communications at the trust in July 2012,[9] where he remained until May 2018.[61] In July 2015, he became a trustee of the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER).[62]

Ryan was appointed to the board of the Oak National Academy in 2024.

From 2015 to 2016, Ryan was part of the Scottish Commission on Widening Access.[58] This commission was supported by the Scottish Government and was chaired by Dame Ruth Silver.[63] After the commission's completion, Ryan chaired the group responsible for developing the Scottish Government's framework for fair access on the behalf of Peter Scott.[64] The framework, which was recommended in the Commission on Widening Access,[65] was officially launched in May 2019.[66]

Office for Students[edit]

From 2018 to 2023, Ryan was the first Director of External Relations at the Office for Students (OfS),[51] a non-departmental public body of the British Department for Education.[67] In this position, he was responsible for stakeholder and student engagement, student information, and communications, and was a member of senior management.[68] He was also chairman of the OfS UK Student Information Group where he led a review of the National Student Survey that ensured its survival.[69]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b See conorfyan.blogspot.com. Aged 33 in May 1997[1]
  2. ^ Also advised Blunkett when he was Shadow Secretary of State for Health (1993 to 1994) and Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Employment (1994 to 1997)

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b "Out of the shadows into a place in the sun". Times Higher Education. 16 May 1997. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  2. ^ a b Ryan, Conor (9 August 2002). "Spin doctors play key role in health of our democracy". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 28 July 2022. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  3. ^ Goodwin, Mark (January 2011). Education Governance, Politics and Policy Under New Labour (PDF). University of Birmingham.
  4. ^ "Networkers: Communities & administration". The Irish Post. November 2017. p. 40. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d Curtis, Polly (11 May 2005). "Blunkett's 'Alastair Campbell' to advise Blair on education". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  6. ^ a b c d "Lowdown on a shy spin doctor who crossed the Irish Sea and chose to stay". Times Higher Education. 1 May 1998. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  7. ^ a b "Governance & Structure". National Foundation for Educational Research. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  8. ^ Castle, Stephen (7 June 1997). "How to tell Smithies from Wonks". The Independent. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  9. ^ a b c d e "New Appointments at the Sutton Trust". Sutton Trust. 3 July 2012. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  10. ^ Staying the Course: Changes to the Participation Age and Qualifications (PDF). Social Market Foundation. March 2008. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-904899-57-0.
  11. ^ Chitty, Clyde. "The Birth of New Labour and the Death of Comprehensive Education". Forum for the Discussion of New Trends in Education. 54. ISSN 0963-8253 – via Lawrence Wishart.
  12. ^ Academies and the future of state education. CentreForum. 2008. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-902622-72-9.
  13. ^ "The Shadow Cabinet: A complete guide". The Independent. 19 October 1995. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  14. ^ Seldon, Anthony (20 September 2007). Blair's Britain, 1997–2007. Cambridge University Press. p. 363. ISBN 9781139468985.
  15. ^ a b Chitty, C. (1 May 2013). New Labour and Secondary Education, 1994-2010. Springer. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-137-07632-8.
  16. ^ Ryan, Conor (26 September 2007). "Tories grab a head start from Blunkett legacy". The Independent. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  17. ^ Richards, Steve (5 June 2000). "Why Labour ministers rage against Whitehall". New Statesman. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  18. ^ "Who goes where?". TES. 8 May 1998. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  19. ^ "Minister Estelle Morris: "never, ever assume that anyone else is coping much better than you"". Institute for Government. 17 November 2021. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  20. ^ Hackett, Geraldine (3 October 1997). "All the presidential men and women". TES. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  21. ^ a b Exley, Sonia (2012). "The politics of educational policy making under New Labour: an illustration of shifts in public service governance" (PDF). Policy & Politics. 40 (2). Policy Press: 7. doi:10.1332/030557312X640031.
  22. ^ Waters, Mick; Brighouse, Tim (5 January 2022). About Our Schools: Improving on previous best. Crown House Publishing Ltd. pp. 90–91. ISBN 978-1-78583-603-9.
  23. ^ "Economic and Social Research Council Annual Report 2004-05 Highlights" (PDF). Economic and Social Research Council. p. 7. Archived from the original on 4 August 2009. Retrieved 30 July 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  24. ^ Jacqueline, Baxter (29 March 2016). School Governance: Policy, Politics and Practices. Policy Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-4473-2603-8.
  25. ^ "I've had enough and I'm not going to spin any more". The Independent. 9 December 1999. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  26. ^ "Sick bay spinning". TES. 11 February 2000. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  27. ^ D'Arcy, Mark; MacLean, Rory (2000). Nightmare!: The Race to Become London's Mayor. Politico's. p. 175. ISBN 978-1-902301-58-7.
  28. ^ Low, George (16 May 2000). "Chums again?". The Guardian. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  29. ^ Ryan, Conor (8 June 2002). "Conor Ryan: It's back to the humble telephone for advisers now". The Independent. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  30. ^ Baldwin, Tom (12 May 2005). "The revolving door sees heavy traffic". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  31. ^ "Former fee sceptic gets top job in rejig". Times Higher Education. 13 May 2005. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  32. ^ Taylor, Cyril (15 February 2013). Sir Cyril: My Life as a Social Entrepreneur. Amberley Publishing Limited. p. 146. ISBN 978-1-4456-1199-0.
  33. ^ "Special Advisers". Hansard. 449. 24 July 2006.
  34. ^ "Tony Blair's official meetings in June 2005". The Guardian. 8 January 2009. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  35. ^ "Former advisers flood back into government". Public Finance. 12 May 2005. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  36. ^ a b Bright, Martin (12 December 2005). "How to make him sweat". New Statesman. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  37. ^ "Education bill approved with Tory help". Politics.co.uk. 25 May 2006. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  38. ^ Ryan, Conor (8 November 2007). "Brown is right to set tough new targets". The Independent. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  39. ^ Ryan, Conor (12 May 2010). "Labour's chance to renew". Public Finance. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  40. ^ "Former Labour Special Advisor backs Free Schools". ConservativeHome. 6 February 2011. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  41. ^ Steinberg, Bene't (28 May 2010). "Single board reduces pupil choice". TES. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  42. ^ McGimpsey, Geoff (24 June 2010). "'Emergency' budget? Time for some emergency blogging..." Belfast Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 29 July 2022.
  43. ^ a b Dale, Iain (2007). Iain Dale's Guide to Political Blogging in the UK. Harriman House Limited. pp. 122–125. ISBN 978-1-905641-62-8.
  44. ^ "Conor Ryan". The Independent. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  45. ^ "Conor Ryan". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  46. ^ "Authors: Conor Ryan". TES. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  47. ^ "Conor Ryan, Author at New Statesman". New Statesman. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  48. ^ "Conor Ryan". Evening Standard. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  49. ^ Ryan, Conor (19 December 2004). "Working with the blind man who saw politics clearly". The Sunday Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  50. ^ Ryan, Conor (18 April 2008). "Failsafe futures". Public Finance.
  51. ^ a b This article contains OGL licensed text This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: "Office for Students welcomes Director of External Relations". Office for Students. 2 March 2018. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  52. ^ Finn Jr., Chester E. (12 April 2002). "Freedom from Failure". Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  53. ^ Wolf, Alison (2004). "Vocational Education is not about Tackling Social Exclusion". Bac or Basics: Challenges for the 14-19 Curriculum: 19–29 – via King's College London Research Portal.
  54. ^ Taylor, Cyril; Ryan, Conor (19 November 2004). "No return to the secret garden". TES. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  55. ^ "Staying the Course: Changes to the Participation Age and Qualifications". Social Market Foundation. 3 March 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  56. ^ Curtis, Polly (15 July 2008). "Education: Expand academy model into primary sector, says thinktank". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  57. ^ Ryan, Conor; Langmead, Sue (2011). Lessons for Life: From Britain's Top Leaders in Business and Government: From Britain's Top Leaders in Education. Unknown Publisher. ISBN 978-0-9568940-0-7.
  58. ^ a b "Conor Ryan". Best in Class Summit. 7 March 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  59. ^ "FUTURA LEARNING PARTNERSHIP overview - Find and update company information". GOV.UK. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  60. ^ "Governance – Futura Learning Partnership". Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  61. ^ "The Sutton Trust: Report of the Trustees and Financial Statements for the Year Ended 31 March 2018" (PDF). Sutton Trust. 31 March 2018. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  62. ^ "THE NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH IN ENGLAND AND WALES - Charity 313392". GOV.UK. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  63. ^ "Scottish Commission on widening HE access". Sutton Trust. 23 November 2015. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  64. ^ Somerville, Shirley-Anne (30 May 2017). "Widening access to higher education: ministerial statement". Scottish Government. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  65. ^ Mckendry, Stephanie. "A framework for fair access to higher education". Wonkhe. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  66. ^ "Chapter 1: Review of Progress". Scottish Government. 13 June 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  67. ^ "Office for Students Framework Document" (PDF). Department for Education. 28 March 2018. The OfS is a non-Departmental public body of the Department, established by the Act to fulfil a role as the main regulator of higher education in England.
  68. ^ This article contains OGL licensed text This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: "Our senior team". Office for Students. 29 April 2022. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
  69. ^ This article contains OGL licensed text This article incorporates text published under the British Open Government Licence: "New questions on freedom of expression and mental wellbeing in National Student Survey shake-up". Office for Students. 28 July 2022. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
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