We’re getting started at the first of three days of Civil Services Live at London Olympia. At the invitation of the Central Office of Information, the Amplified team of Benjamin Ellis, Christian Payne, Lucy Windmill and Joanne Jacobs will be tweeting, qiking, blogging and otherwise recording events as they unfold. Go to the newsdesk for an aggregated feed.

We’ll start with Alastair Campbell’s opening address, detailing the theme of the event, ‘Innovation in Action: what does it mean?’. Keep refreshing this page for updates to the live blog.

09:48 Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s pre-recorded message is screened, thanking the civil servants for their efforts and indicating the financial crisis.

09:50 Alastair Campbell is introduced as our host and he is appreciative of a short intro. He notes that he was asked to speak about his time with civil servants, and after initially refusing he decided to accept but now wants to sell his book outside!

09:55 Campbell tells the story of his first dealings with civil service as a new government minister. It took him awhile to adapt and he felt that his PA was loyal to his predecessor. Tried to replace her initially but he was unable to replace her. Then as time went by and they worked it out, he found her indispensible and was one of the few people he could not do without. He received the same loyalty his predecessor had done. This is the practice of the civil service: the assistance and access to information and resources that would otherwise be extremely difficult to access.

09:59 Campbell notes that in times of crisis - Diana’s death and the Omagh bombing given as examples - the civil service machine simply kicks in and communicates, feeds, supports and facilitates all that is required to deal with the crisis.

10:01 Civil Service machine necessary so that the actions of the government can be executed. Yet the public service ethos is under significant attack in public mindset. This means civil servants become far too defensive about the good things they do. The very fact that you go in to the civil service there is an understanding of the public service ethos and work ethic.

10:09 When it comes to the changes in the structure of government, implications are substantive for the civil service.

[[JJ's note - lots of story telling here but not actually sure where we're going with this. Apparently Campbell is trying to make civil servants feel happy about themselves, but not sure whether he's dancing around the issue of forthcoming widescale change in the civil service, or whether he's just promoting his diaries!]

10:16 Around the world there is surprise that there is such a small circle of special advisors around a minister. Those special advisors are not independent but they are impartial, and thus there is a mutual understanding and respect for the tasks and responsibilities they carry out.

10:19 Any bigger organisation has to have some strategic element and there is no larger organisation than government. The only way we can respond to serious issues is to operationalise the benefits of a well-run department of special advisors.

[JJ's note: still don't know what Innovation in Action is meant to be.]

10:22 Number 10 on Campbell’s list of things you have to do to make the machne of government work is: “Encourage innovation in an organisation in a non-blame culture”. If civil servants feel that they have an opportunity to improve the outputs of ministers they should be able to do so - going above and beyond what is expected of them.

Question 1: Media and politicians direct their attention to old media and not enough to new media. [YAY!]

AC Response - media is completely transformed. Biampbell worries less about both new and old media as people are generating their own understanding of what is happening. Need to ensure the core strategy is strong, clear and understood internally and that all media are being used to transmit messages.

Question 2: How far do you think the media generally understand what the civil service is and what it does.

AC response: Understanding is not deep but they don’t really care about that. Journalists rarely are interested in the activities of the civil service because it is rarely newsworthy. Civil Service need to communicate their functions themselves in order to ensure raised morale and recruitment quality.

Question 3: Look forward to reading the book. If you are to be a footnote in history, what would it be?

AC Response: A FOOTNOTE??? To be frank, I can’t see much thinking about what I will be remembered for. Because we are a democracy you remember a leader for their programme changes across a range of areas. You don’t remember individuals within the team outside of the leader. Campbell believes he was able to make some changes in communication in part because of changes in media.

Question 4: If there’s one thing that slows things down in civil service it’s ‘getting sign off’. How do you circumvent.

AC Response: Errrm. A well run department is one with clear direction and leadership and which works well. Yes Campbell occasionally circumvented process but only as a privileged advisor. Yes it’s frustrating, but sometimes, taking the time if it’s necessary is a good thing.

Question 5: You said if the brown smelly stuff hits the fan, you should stick your head above the parapet. What do you mean by that?

AC Response: When things go bad, you take a lot of hits. You need to still be there because it’s better to take those hits and to explain, apologising where necessary and to set out a forward plan.

Question 6: How do you ensure interest in modern media age?

AC Response: politicians with the abaility to speak clearly in 140 characters and have authenticity and candour will be more attractive to new media.