Jess Reedy seconded to the Cabinet Office’s new Office for the Impact Economy

The Office for the Impact Economy was recently launched to provide a ‘single front door’ to help the government partner with and grow the impact economy, including impact investors, philanthropy and purpose-driven businesses. Based within the Cabinet Office and reporting to the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, the Office aims to ensure that public funding works harder by harnessing private impact capital, skills, and resources in support of national renewal.

Strengthening strategic engagement

A central focus for the OIE is to coordinate and strengthen how government partners with and grows the impact economy, bringing a more joined-up and strategic approach across departments.

During her secondment, Jess will play a key role in developing and delivering the Office’s strategic engagement framework, supporting how the ‘front door’ operates in practice and how the Office delivers its engagement work - building relationships with key stakeholders across the impact economy. This work is central to the OIE’s mission to move beyond fragmented pilots toward a government-embedded strategy for the impact economy delivered through co-design and partnership with the impact economy.

Bridging research and practice

The secondment reflects the Office’s ambition to work openly and collaboratively with stakeholders, drawing on the depth and breadth of experience that has developed across the field.

Over the past decade, the GO Lab has worked at the intersection of research, policy and practice to support the development of cross-sector partnerships, social outcomes contracting and more relational approaches to public service delivery. Jess brings experience from this landscape, with a focus on how partnerships are developed, supported and sustained in practice.

Her role will help ensure that the Office’s work is informed by the lessons, relationships and insights that exist across the impact economy - such as those GO Lab has cultivated - and how these can be connected to government to support the development of new cross-sector collaborations.

Responding to the secondment, Jess said:

Andreea Anastasiu, Executive Director of the Government Outcomes Lab, said:

About the Office for the Impact Economy

The Office for the Impact Economy seeks to partner with and grow the impact economy, acting as a front door within the Cabinet Office while collaborating with departments across government - including HM Treasury, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and the No10 Partnerships Unit. Its remit includes driving cross-government strategy, identifying partnership opportunities, and scaling up community improvements such as through innovative financing and social outcomes contracts.