The Inaugural CMRE Friedman Lecture: 'School choice matures: lessons for policymakers'

In the past decades, school choice has emerged as a key policy option to improve education worldwide. Should it remain at the forefront of the agenda, and, if so, how can we maximise the benefits? In the first annual CMRE Friedman lecture, Julian Le Grand draws upon his experience as world-leading theorist and architect of public service markets and considers the lessons learned and the road ahead in education.

Julian Le Grand has been the Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics since 1993. From 2003 to 2005 he was seconded to No 10 Downing Street as Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister. He is a Founding Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine, and a Trustee of the Kings Fund. He is currently Chairman of Health England: the National Reference Group for Health and Well Being for the UK Department of Health.

Julian is the author, co-author or editor of eighteen books, and has written more than one hundred refereed journal articles and book chapters on economics, philosophy and public policy. He has also been named one of Prospect magazine’s 100 top British public intellectuals, and one of the ESRC’s ten Heroes of Dissemination. Julian has advised numerous government bodies and agencies, and was one of the principal architects of the UK Government’s current public service reforms, introducing choice and competition into healthcare and education. Some of his other policy innovations include the Pupil Premium, and Patient Budgets, now being piloted by the Department of Health.

He writes regularly for the national and international press and appears frequently on television and radio, including the Today Programme, The World at One, The World Tonight and The Politics Show. He has been several times a member of Radio 4’s Any Questions panel and has presented editions of Radio 4’s Analysis and BBC 2’s The Big Idea.