Visiting Lecturer - Stuart Astill
Dr Stuart Astill BSc (Manchester) MSc (LSE) PhD (LSE)
Visiting Lecturer and MPA Programme Manager
Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 1677
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 1717
Room: A5 Elmfield
Feedback & Consultation hours: By appointment
Email: s.astill@sheffield.ac.uk
Profile
Dr Astill has been a visiting lecturer in the Department since 2008. He is also a research associate of the Public Policy Group at the London School of Economics (LSE).
His main work is as a senior economist in the UK Government Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). He is currently responsible for leading a team of professional analysts who carry out performance analysis, examine value for money issues and support improvement and change across DWP's operations - the DWP spends around £8bn on running costs and programmes each year as well as distributing more than £150bn of social income transfers. He has around fifteen years' experience in Civil Service and consultancy roles in the UK and EU as an economist, policy analyst and statistician.
Dr Astill previously researched and taught at the LSE and Sciences-Po (IEP), Paris as well as having trained civil servants in various government departments, through the National School of Government and private training providers.
Teaching
Combining a full-time career as a senior government economist with academia is not easy, but the prime motivation for me is that it allows me to teach. Through my work in the classroom and lecture theatre I can work with and inspire students who in their turn inspire me to look at issues in a new light.
I have a wide range of teaching experience having taught undergraduate and graduate courses on public administration, economics of public policy, rational choice, comparative policy change, EU politics and political analysis. I have recently been teaching POL113 Introduction to Political Analysis and POL3018 Advanced Political Analysis which are part of the three year undergraduate 'political analysis' series.
These subjects in particular allow me to bring my combined experience as a civil servant and academic researcher into the seminar room and lecture theatre. These courses are hugely challenging for the students as they combine traditional teaching with group exercise work. My experience and own development as a senior manager in government means that I can help students to develop their skills and also get great personal satisfaction out of seeing students organising themselves and sharing successes and difficulties.
I am currently developing core courses for the MPA in Global Public Administration and Management which will build on my past experience in linking the worlds of government and academia, as well as creating a dynamic classroom learning environment, to produce courses that will stimulate and educate MPA students.
Current Research
Dr Astill has researched extensively the theory and practical implications of networks and policy making in France and the UK and is interested in the roles of evolution of ideas, networks and complexity in public policy formation. While the National Audit Office (NAO) Research Fellow based at the LSE he carried out a major piece of research centred on a study of value-for-money audit in the UK NAO and the French Cour des Comptes. He is currently preparing material for two books: one on how economic decisions in government about market and state intervention fit alongside pragmatic political constraints; another on how political science research can more happily and productively draw on advanced quantitative methods and associated ways of thinking.