DEMOS

Tom Bentley will be Executive Director for policy and cabinet for the Premier of Victoria, Australia from September 2006. He was Director of Demos from 1999-2006.  Prior to that he was a special adviser to David Blunkett MP, then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, where he worked on issues including school curriculum reform, social inclusion and creativity.

Tom’s work focuses particularly on democracy and governance, public services and learning. Under Tom's leadership, Demos came to play a leading role in the formation of policy ideas and analysis of government reform, and became known as a ‘do tank’, providing consultancy and practical partnership alongside its more familiar forms of research and policy ideas.

His publications include: Learning beyond the classroom: education for a changing world, (Routledge, 1998) The Creative Age: knowledge and skills for a new economy (Demos, 1999), The Adaptive State: strategies for personalising the public realm (Demos 2003), Letting go: complexity, individualism and the left (Renewal, 2002), and Everyday Democracy: why we get the politicians we deserve (Demos, 2005).

Aged 32, he lives in Melbourne with his wife and two daughters.