Jonathan Mills meets Renee Van Diemen
Careers at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
We deliver energy security and Net Zero
Our Directors General (DGs) are getting out and about to meet the people who make DESNZ tick.???
In this interview, Jonathan Mills, Director General for Energy Markets and Supply meets Renee Van Diemen, Senior Policy Lead - Capacity Market Reform, Edinburgh.?
(Renee Van Diemen to Jonathan Mills): I think it might be quite interesting to talk about how you ended up as a DG??
?"That’s quite a broad question – and I could give a three-hour version. It’s amazing how many people you meet in the Civil Service who will say I ended up here by accident, and I’m one of those people. So, my intent when I was at university was to be an academic criminologist but I realised that being a career academic is a whole different thing to being a student and I didn’t have the concentration for it and so I thought about what other things I could do.?
?"The two things that appealed were journalism and the Civil Service, so I got a job in the Treasury in 2000, and it was amazing. It was not at all what I expected - in my mind the Civil Service role was to just keep things ticking over but I joined the Treasury at a point where there was a lot going on in relation to growth policy, where I first worked, and I saw how much impact you could have.?
?"Roll forward a few years:? I ended up getting into energy policy and I moved to the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as the director - which was a fantastic experience - launching Contracts for Difference and the capacity market. And then I went to the Cabinet Office , and then onto Work and Pensions where I became a DG, and then in early 2022, when the energy crisis was really kicking off, I got a phone call to ask if I was interested in coming back to the world of Energy and the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) (as it was then) to help sort out our response to the energy crisis, which I thought was an amazing opportunity actually – an important thing to do. And I've been here ever since."?
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(RVD to JM): It sounds like quite the career path across a wide variety of government, which leads us nicely to the next question:?How would you describe what you do now to a child??
?"I have a 14-year-old and 11-year-old and so the honest answer to your question is ‘badly’ because I've not ever really managed to explain to them quite what I do. That's the funny thing about the civil service - it's quite a hard thing to explain sometimes.??
?"The best way I've come to describe it is that I help the government take decisions on important things for the country. And my kids certainly understand the importance of climate change and they understand what electricity is and so they can kind of see what it's relevant to. How I would translate that to what I actually do in my day is a bit harder.?
I think it's important to sort of think about where you fit into the bigger system, and that's what we're trying to do, we're trying to help our country make decisions.?
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(RVD to JM): Going back to you personally and your career path so far. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given, both in your career and personally??
?"I think the best piece of advice and the one that sticks in my mind the most was in my first job when my boss said ‘always try to make new mistakes’ and I think that's quite important because you're always going to make mistakes. You don't get everything right, all the time. Nobody does. But at least try not to keep making the same mistake over and over again. Try to do things differently. Experiment. If you found you've done something one way and it didn't work - try something different. If you found that you've been too cautious, then try experimenting more and risk making a mistake. Just try. ?That's how you learn things about yourself and how you learn things about different ways to do the job."?
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(RVD to JM): Related to your team, you work out of Edinburgh a lot. How do you balance managing a team that's all over the country? And do you have any advice to managers about getting that right??
?"I think increasingly a lot of our teams are actually spread out across the country. There’s two dimensions to this: the things that you need to do in order to make sure that it works well - logistically, and with the right habits. But more importantly I think it’s about how you get the advantages of being in multiple locations.??
?"So, for example, one of the things that is really interesting about working in Edinburgh is that if you look out of the window, you can see the Scottish Government building and there’s a whole ecosystem here of policy, business, and the universities that you can take advantage of - you can only get that by being in Edinburgh. So, what’s most important to me is how you take advantage of being in the places you're in. Rather just thinking about not being somewhere else.?
?"I should also say, as of a few weeks ago, half my office team are in Salford - and that's great. It just means we have to make sure we're a bit more structured about how we check in at the beginning of the day and all that sort of thing, but it means we're linked into a whole different conversation.?
?"One of the perennial problems for any government department is people getting trapped in silos. And I often find that when you come out of London, that happens less. That people are more likely to be sitting next to a colleague who works in a completely different team or department and therefore actually sometimes you’re able to make links that aren't getting made in other locations. So that's a real advantage that you do get."?
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(RVD to JM): What's your favourite thing about Edinburgh??
?"I’m slightly conflicted on this. My parents live on the west coast of Scotland, so I know Glasgow quite a lot better than Edinburgh but having said that I've really got to know Edinburgh since coming out here for DESNZ. And it's very beautiful city. We like the port of Leith, I like getting to the seaside, but I think the main thing is that it does have that kind of intensity and energy of being a capital city, and in a different way from London, and I really like that."?
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(JM to RVD): How about you??
?"Oh, I love how close it is to nature. I like the balance between the coast and the mountains and the city. I wasn't quite ready to move out of somewhere with a city vibe when we left London so when we chose Edinburgh it seemed right. The city is alive, but you can escape in a few minutes, and you can cycle everywhere. So, it's just a bit more laid back without missing the nice restaurants and city buzz that we had before with London and, it's really nice that the Civil Service allows you to do that."?
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(JM to RVD): So, I've been a champion for Edinburgh for a year now but I'm still really keen to work out how best to make it work. What's the most useful thing that I can do??
"I think the most important thing is just to continue highlighting the value of cross site working and making it possible for teams to travel and to meet colleagues across the country and to just build that team cohesion."??
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