Simon James works in the Modernisation and Reform Unit of the Cabinet Office. He is a Senior Visiting Research Fellow, attached to the Department of Political Economy at King’s College since 2015, and has been a part-time lecturer to masters’ degree courses since 2020. He served on the College Research Ethics Committee 2019-22.

He is the author of Prime Minister and Cabinet Government (Routledge, 3rd edition 2020), the standard text on the subject, and of numerous other books, chapters and articles published in journals including Public Administration, Policy Studies, Parliamentary Affairs and Public Law.

He has also authored research reports commissioned by the OECD and the World Bank and has contributed to publications of the World Bank, OECD, the United Nations Development Programme and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

A graduate of the London School of Economics, Simon worked from 1982 to 2001 as a public servant in, successively, London local government, the Department for Education and Employment, the Cabinet Secretariat (working on the Blair government's constitutional reform programme) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris.

From 2001 to 2021 he was a freelance adviser to governments in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, including extended spells in Kosovo, Antigua, Ukraine, northern Cyprus and Somalia, employed mainly by the World Bank, the British government and the European Commission. He specialises in central government policy-making, particularly the reform of prime ministers' offices and cabinet secretariats; he also works on all aspects of political and civil service reform, and public policy management.

He continues today to advise the Government Secretariat of Macedonia on central government reform.