Behind the Black Door competition winners visit Downing Street

14 May 2019

This year the Careers Service ran the fifth annual ‘Behind the Black Door’ competition, where ten talented students won a visit to Whitehall for the day to meet with senior civil servants and get their photos taken outside Number 10

In March five teams of students, from across all three faculties, took part in the competition on campus, tasked with solving a real government communications brief. The winning team and runners up worked on the challenge of how they would engage their peer group regarding ‘the importance of recognising when a news article is based on incorrect or misleading evidence.’

Our head judge Claire Pimm, Deputy Director of PM Priority Campaigns, Insight and Evaluation, joined us from Whitehall to help chose the winning team. Helping Claire put the students through their paces on the panel was Dr Nicole Martin from the School of Social Sciences, a competition winner from last year and a current Fast Streamer at the Civil Service. 

The winning team and runners up visited Whitehall on 26 April and had a varied and diverse programme of events throughout the day including meeting with Alex Aiken, Executive Director of Government Communication Service, as well as colleagues from National Security Communications, Insight and Evaluation team, the Digital Communications team and the Chief Speechwriter at the Cabinet Office. 

The day included a tour of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as well as a visit to Downing Street for photos outside Number 10.

The competition was open to all students and we thank staff for helping to publicise this event. We look forward to running it again in 2020, and if you have any questions please get in touch with Careers Consultant, Kim Bailey.