Tom Bentley is an author and policy analyst based in Australia. Bentley was born and educated in the United Kingdom where he gained a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Bentley was formerly Executive Director for Policy and Cabinet for the Premier of Victoria, Australia, and is currently Deputy Chief of Staff to Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Julia Gillard

Julia Eileen Gillard is the 27th and current Prime Minister of Australia, in office since June 2010.Gillard was born in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales and migrated with her family to Adelaide, Australia in 1966, attending Mitcham Demonstration School and Unley High School. In 1982 Gillard moved...

 and part-time director of the Australia and New Zealand School of Government

Australia and New Zealand School of Government

The Australia and New Zealand School of Government is an educational institution that teaches strategic management and high-level policy to public sector leaders....

. Between 1998 and 2006 he was director of DEMOS

Demos (UK think tank)

- History :Demos was founded in 1993 by former Marxism Today editor Martin Jacques, and Geoff Mulgan, who became its first director. It was formed in response to what Mulgan, Jacques and others saw as a crisis in politics in Britain, with voter engagement in decline and political institutions...

 - described by The Economist

The Economist

The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

as ‘Britain's most influential think tank'. Prior to his role at Demos he was a special adviser to David Blunkett

David Blunkett

David Blunkett is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, having represented Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2010...

 MP, then Secretary of State for Education and Employment, where he worked on issues including school curriculum reform, social inclusion, creativity, citizenship, adult skills and area-based regeneration. He has been a Trustee and Chair of the Learning Programme for the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA

NESTA

The National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts is an independent endowment in the United Kingdom established by an Act of Parliament in 1998....

) and a Trustee of the Community Action Network in London.

Bentley has been a regular contributor to The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, The Observer

The Observer

The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

, the Financial Times

Financial Times

The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....

and the New Statesman

New Statesman

New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....

as well as regularly being interviewed for print and broadcast media.

Publications

• 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),
• Everyday Democracy: why we get the politicians we deserve (Demos, 2005)