Considered ‘must attend’ events for Senior Civil Service members, Home Office SCS Conferences were held in October 2007 and March 2008 at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London.

Each event was attended by the Permanent Secretary and around 200 senior staff from across all Home Office disciplines. In 2007, The Home Secretary, the Rt Hon Jacqui Smith, MP addressed the conference; and in March 2008, the audience heard from Minister of State for Crime Reduction, Policing, Community Safety and Counter-Terrorism, the Rt Hon Hazel Blears, MP and guest speaker Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.

The conferences comprised main plenary and breakout sessions, and an exhibition area for refreshments and networking opportunities. Full audience participation was achieved through a mix of live debates, Ministerial Q&A sessions, round table discussions and inter-active voting.

Key to the success of both events was security, catering and venue co-ordination to ensure that the conferences ran smoothly and to time.

Glasgows designed and produced eye-catching widescreen stage sets to emphasise the Home Office branding. Creative lighting and colourwashes were used to highlight a series of subject related images to stimulate discussion and provide a constantly changing and atmospheric back-drop.