Professor Leighton Andrews

Publication

• Date
• Type
• Promoted

Research

Research interests

• Public Service Leadership and Innovation, including Ministerial Leadership
• Public Service Strategy, Planning, Delivery and Implementation
• Ministerial Life and Lives
• Governance Narratives and Discursive Capacity
• Governance of Devolution
• Public policy-making
• Media and Social Media Regulation and Governance

Recent journal articles and chapters include:Mortality, blame avoidance and the British state: constructing Boris Johnson’s exit strategy, chapter in Stuart Price and Ben Harbisher (ed) : Power, Media, and the Covid-19 Pandemic: framing public discourse; ‘Like any wartime government’: Covid-19, Churchillian imaginaries, and the limits of English exceptionalism, in Jo Pettit (ed), Covid-19, the Second World War, and the idea of Britishness; Performing Welsh Government 1999–2016: how insider narratives illuminate the hidden wiring and emergent cultural practices, in Contemporary British History https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2021.1996235; The forward march of devolution halted – and the limits of progressive unionism. In Political Quarterly https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.13044; The role of Ministerial leadership - some reflections from Wales. In: Harris, Alma and Jones, Michelle (Eds) 2020 Leading and Transforming Education Systems, Springer; Reluctant Europeans: the BBC and European media policymaking 1992-1997 in the International Journal of Cultural Policy; Brexit, Cabinet Norms and the Ministerial Code: are we living in a post-Nolan era? in Political Quarterly; Algorithms, Regulation and Governance Readiness in Algorithmic Regulation, edited by Karen Yeung and Martin Lodge. Oxford: OUP; Regulating the internet intermediaries in a post-truth world: Beyond media policy? (co-written with Prof Petros Iosifidis) in International Communications Gazette, https://doi.org/10.1177/1748048519828595 ; The Regulatory Moment is Upon Us in Mair, J, Clark, T, Fowler, N, Snoddy, R, Tait R  (eds) Anti-Social Media? The impact on journalism and society, Bury St. Edmunds: Abramis Academic Publishing, 2018; Public administration, public leadership and the construction of public value in the age of the algorithm and 'big data' in Public Administration; Telling Governance Stories in PS: Political Science; How can we demonstrate the public value of evidence-based policy making when government ministers declare that the people ‘have had enough of experts’? in Palgrave Communications.

Books by Leighton:

Wales Says Yes (Seren, 1999)

Ministering to Education (Parthian, 2014).

Facebook, the Media and Democracy, (Routledge, 2019).

Ministerial Leadership: Practice, Performance and Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

Leighton has presented papers to a range of academic conferences in politics, public leadership and the media. He was a keynote speaker at the 2018 Political Studies Association conference in Cardiff in 2018.

Teaching

Leighton has taught a wide range of modules in public leadership and politics.

He developed and teaches a post-graduate politics module Government from the Inside: from the Minister's Viewpoint for Masters courses in Politics. From 2024 he will be teaching a new but related module Ministers at Work. He will also be teaching on the Business School's full-time and part-time MBA programmes, leading the part-time Module on Global Challenges and Strategic Decision Making and teaching on the full-time version. He will also be teaching in 2025 on the MSc Business Strategy and Enterprise module Leadership and Personal Development

He co-developed the Executive MSc in Public Leadership and taught the module Leading Policy into Delivery. He jointly developed and jointly delivered the module on Strategic Planning and Innovation on the Diploma in NHS Planning.

In 2019 he jointly developed and jointly delivered a module on Leadership, Innovation and Change for the Academi Wales all-Wales Graduate programme delivered through the the University of South Wales.

In 2018 and 2020 he taught on the executive leadership course for the NHS Wales Finance Academy.

From 2018-2020 he taught International Business Environment module on the MSc in International Management in Cardiff Business School.

He also contributes guest lectures to a variety of other programmes across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Biography

Career

Formerly Minister for Education and Skills and Minister for Public Services in the Welsh Governments from 2009-16, a Deputy Minister in the One Wales Government from 2007-9 and Assembly Member for the Rhondda from 2003-16.

Prior to his election to the National Assembly in 2003, Leighton had had a successful career in the private, public and voluntary sectors. He was the BBC's Head of Public Affairs in London from 1993-1996 during its Charter Renewal campaign He ran a number of businesses in the public relations field and set up his own business after leaving the BBC.

Qualifications

• BA Hons, English and History, University of Wales, 1978
• MA History, University of Sussex, 1980

Media contributions

Leighton has written for an extensive range of publications in both print and digital format, including the Guardian, the Irish Times, New Statesman, Times Higher Education Supplement, the Western Mail, The New European, Golwg, Agenda, ClickonWales, The Conversation, the Article, Byline Times and many others. He has broadcast regularly for a wide range of media outlets on both television and radio. Recent examples are listed on his personal website www.leightonandrews.com

Professional memberships

• NUJ
• PSA

Academic positions

• 2004-2016, Honorary Professor, JOMEC, Cardiff University
• 2002-2003, Lecturer in Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC)
• 1997 Visiting Professor, University of Westminster

Supervisions

I am interested in supervising in the following areas:

• public service leadership and innovation
• government ministerial life at UK and Welsh levels
• public sector narratives
• evolution of Welsh Government
• regulation of Facebook and Google.