A graduate trainee reveals her sweet, secret weapon when it comes to performing her day-to-day role at the National Audit Office.
The National Audit Office is a public body responsible for ensuring the government and parliament use public funds appropriately and effectively. The body has recently worked on high profile campaigns such as Kids Company and St Helena Airport. One graduate has revealed her secret weapon when she needs to access information.
Lucy Horitz studied Politics and Philosophy at the University of York before she joined the National Audit Office's Graduate Trainee Programme. She says she started working on education and talked to a range of students and young people.
"Working on Education, I get lots of opportunities to visit schools and to interact with young people," she says.
"My favourite experience so far was as a first year trainee, when I ran a focus group with young people Not in Education, Employment or Training, as part of fieldwork for a Value for Money study."
After Lucy discovered young people were quite reserved, she unleased her unique interrogation technique.
"At first, the young people were all quite shy, but with the help of some icebreakers and a tasty packets of biscuits, they soon opened up," Lucy says. "Their favourite question was when we asked what they would do if they were prime minister - they had lots of really useful suggestions for how to make further education better!"
During her time in schools, Lucy was surprised one improvement from her own school days.
"I've also had more than my fair share of school dinners over the last three years, and surprisingly, they are much better than I remember from my schooldays."
Image credit: Padurariu Alexandru