Ministers: effective political leadership in government by p4md

MINISTERS: EFFECTIVE POLITICAL LEADERSHIP IN GOVERNMENT Discussion paper This discussion paper explores the role and functions of government ministers across Whitehall and how make their roles more effective. This document is intended to facilitate discussion on this topic and we welcome feedback.

July 2021

THE COMMISSION FOR SMART GOVERNMENT The Commission for Smart Government is an independent initiative to consider how to make public administration more effective. The Commission is a project of GovernUp, which is an independent, non-party research initiative that offers evidenced-based solutions for all political parties to adopt. The 12 workstreams are: Assessment

What have been the standout successes and failures of recent public administrations, and what can we learn from them?

Best Practice

What are the examples of best practice in the UK and around the world from which we can learn?

Talent & Competence

How do we equip civil servants with better skills, recruit and remunerate to attract the best and incentivise success, and share knowledge?

Project Management

How do we ensure government has the right skills and systems in place to commission and manage big projects successfully?

Finance

How do we ensure stronger financial management, strip out cost and drive efficiency?

Structures

How should we improve the current Whitehall structure, with its small yet overlapping centre and siloed departments, to make decision-making more effective and less bureaucratic? To what extent should we devolve more power and decision-making to local bodies, and how can this be achieved while maintaining a proper role for the UK Government? How can we make the system, including ministers and civil servants, as well as agencies, regulators and arms-length bodies, more accountable?

Devolution Accountability Technology

How can we deploy technology more effectively and rapidly to improve public services?

Data

How can we ensure that decisions are evidence-based and informed by data?

Ministers

How can we make ministers and advisers more effective in their jobs?

Appointments

How can we ensure that the appointments system attracts the best and aligns with the Government’s priorities?

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COMMISSIONERS Michael Bichard

Deborah Cadman Camilla Cavendish Suma Chakrabarti

Ian Cheshire Phaedra Chrousos Chris Deverell Jayne-Anne Gadhia Martin Gilbert Verity Harding Nick Herbert Margaret Hodge Husayn Kassai Daniel Korski Paul Marshall John Nash Mark Rowley Gisela Stuart Jacky Wright

Lord Bichard KCB is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords and chair of the National Audit Office. He was formerly Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education and the first Director of the Institute for Government. Deborah Cadman OBE is Chief Executive of Birmingham City Council, and previously of the West Midlands Combined Authority. Baroness Cavendish of Little Venice is a former Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit. Sir Suma Chakrabarti KCB was until recently the President of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He was formerly Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice and the Department for International Development. Sir Ian Cheshire was the Chairman of Barclays UK plc until 2021. He was formerly the Government Lead Non-Executive Director 2019-2020. Phaedra Chrousos is the Chief Strategy Officer for Libra Group and a former commissioner for the US Technology and Transformation Service. General Sir Chris Deverell KCB MBE is the former Commander of UK Joint Forces Command. Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia DBE FRSE is a businesswoman and the founder and Executive Chair of the start-up Snoop. Martin Gilbert is the Chairman of Revolut and the co-founder and former CEO of Aberdeen Asset Management. Verity Harding is a Visiting Fellow at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Cambridge University, where she is on secondment from her role as Global Head of Policy and Partnerships at DeepMind. Lord Herbert of South Downs CBE PC (Chair) is a former Conservative minister. Rt Hon Dame Margaret Hodge DBE MP is a Labour Member of Parliament, a former minister, and the former Chair of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. Husayn Kassai is the co-founder and CEO of Onfido. Daniel Korski CBE is the co-founder and CEO of PUBLIC and a former Deputy Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit. Sir Paul Marshall is Chair and Chief Investment Officer of Marshall Wace LLP and a former Lead Non-Executive Director at the Department for Education. Lord Nash is a businessman and Government Lead Non-Executive Director. He is a former minister. Sir Mark Rowley QPM is a former Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston PC is Lead Non-Executive Director at the Cabinet Office and a former Labour MP and minister. Jacky Wright is the Chief Digital Officer for Microsoft US.

Contents Foreword by Nick Herbert ........................................................................................................... 5 Summary ........................................................................................................................................ 7 Ministers: obstacles to effectiveness ............................................................................................ 9 Ministers begin their roles unprepared and have little access to training or professional development .............................................................................................................................. 9 Lack of prior knowledge ................................................................................................................................... 9 Lords Ministers ................................................................................................................................................. 10 Narrow range of backgrounds ....................................................................................................................... 11 Turnover ............................................................................................................................................................ 11 Induction and training ...................................................................................................................................... 12 A lack of clear direction or mandate limits impact and accountability ............................. 13 Direction from the Prime Minister and centre ........................................................................................... 13 Ministerial teams ............................................................................................................................................... 14 Many ministers feel they do not have enough support ........................................................ 15 What support is needed? ................................................................................................................................ 15 Special advisers ................................................................................................................................................. 16 Oversight and progress-chasing ..................................................................................................................... 16 A mismatch between ministerial authority and accountability .......................................... 17 Ministers and civil servants ............................................................................................................................. 17 Ministers on the line ........................................................................................................................................ 18 Civil Service capability ..................................................................................................................................... 18 Getting it right versus arguing about blame ................................................................................................. 19 Making Ministers more effective ................................................................................................ 21 How wider reforms to government will help Ministers be more effective ........................ 21 Reforms to the appointment, training and ways of working of Ministers .......................... 22 Preparation, induction and training ............................................................................................................... 22 Drawing on wider talent for Ministerial appointments .............................................................................. 25 Personal advice and support................................................................................................... 26 Improving sense of purpose and teamwork .......................................................................... 28 Authors......................................................................................................................................... 32 References .................................................................................................................................... 33

Foreword by Nick Herbert Effective political leadership is vital to any policy success, and to having an effective and accountable government. The Institute for Government found individual leadership to be one of the seven common factors behind six of the most successful policies since Thatcher.1 Strong working relationships between Ministers and civil servants are particularly crucial for success. Realising the opportunities open to Britain in the years ahead will depend on a smart, radically improved government, and Ministers being better at their jobs is right at the centre of that. The Government itself recognises that change is about enabling Ministers, as well as civil servants, to be better at their jobs. In a recent speech at a Commission event, Michael Gove spoke about both the accountability and training of Ministers, topics on which we make proposals in this paper.2 Being a Minister is a very difficult and hugely varied job that takes very different forms. Junior Ministers (Ministers of State and Parliamentary Under Secretaries of State) have very different responsibilities and day-to-day preoccupations compared to Secretaries of State, as do those drawn from the House of Lords compared to the House of Commons. Apart from the obvious differences in areas of responsibility, the experience of a Minister in the Treasury or Cabinet Office differs enormously from being a Minister in a large operational department like the Department for Work and Pensions or Ministry of Justice; or those travelling frequently and working more often with partners outside the British government, such as in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office or the Northern Ireland Office. All Ministers, above all Secretaries of State, have to be on top of all aspects of a very wide-ranging role – defining policy priorities, spearheading implementation, managing their departments (and their immediate teams), Parliamentary and party duties, and communicating with the media and the public, all while still being a constituency MP. The job is made even more difficult because a Minister rarely knows what role the Prime Minister will offer when he or she calls and never knows how long they will have in post. The average Minister spends less than two years in post, and junior Ministers tend to move on in even shorter time periods.3 Ministers in the UK have a shorter average tenure than in many other countries and certainly much shorter than private sector leaders. Even leaving aside their typically very short tenure, Ministers’ leadership roles are unlike any other. Management techniques or professional development practices cannot be directly transplanted from the private sector to government. However, that does not mean that there is nothing to learn from those leading other large organisations. The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

This Discussion Paper identifies four main areas which can undermine ministerial effectiveness: ● Ministers begin their roles unprepared and have little access to training or professional development. ● A lack of clear direction or mandate limits impact and accountability. ● Many Ministers do not feel they have enough support. ● A mismatch between authority and accountability means Ministers take the fall for mistakes that they don’t always have the levers to address. These are problems with the system that are recognised by Ministers themselves, across different political parties and administrations. They cause Ministers personal frustration, as well as making it more difficult for them and their departments to work effectively. Changes proposed in other Commission papers, on digital, devolution, project management, finance and departmental boards, would help Ministers become more effective. This paper explores changes to the way Ministers are prepared, appointed, supported and work as members of a government team. A discourse in which commentators point either to the political class or the Civil Service as the sole source of shortcomings in government is unproductive. People in both categories, almost always, want to do a great job and deliver for the people of this great country. That is why the Commission decided it needed to consider and address the effectiveness of Ministers, as well as the government machine as a whole. This paper sets out some ambitious proposals to improve the way Ministers’ talents and experience are nurtured and developed, and to help them to work together as an effective team. July 2021

Summary Being a Minister is a critically important and yet hugely difficult job. Ministers are expected to start making decisions, with a real impact on citizens, from day one. Yet they have very little by the way of preparation, induction or training. Few are expert in their areas of responsibility before entering office, many even know little about how government works. Frequent reshuffles mean Ministers can feel as if they are constantly learning, rather than working at their highest capacity. Despite their role explicitly being to provide their departments with direction, Secretaries of State rarely receive strong direction from the Prime Minister. This means they do not have a clear framework within which to decide on their own priorities or direct their ministerial teams. Many Ministers feel that they do not have sufficient support to get to grips with their departments or to get their policy priorities implemented. They also face the pressures resulting from a confused system of accountability, being held responsible for everything that is happening in their department despite much operational activity being out of their control. These challenges threaten the ability of Ministers to operate effectively. They create an environment that is not conducive to Ministers being able to focus consistently on what really matters for their time in office, nor for ensuring coordinated or strategic policies across government. Instead, Ministers can end up over-reliant on a small number of advisors, feeling like they are constantly learning about new parts of government, only to be moved on in frequent reshuffles. They end up spread too thinly across a number of important issues without a structure for prioritisation. Without clear direction, any assessment of the performance of a Minister will be necessarily vague. Without clear accountability, discussion tends to be focused on blame, rather than really figuring out what went wrong and why, and preventing it from occurring in future. In large measure, the challenges which Ministers face are symptoms of systemic failings, which cannot be addressed by looking at Ministers in isolation. In its final overview paper, and other discussion papers, the Commission has made some very important recommendations which would improve the working of government for all players in it, not least Ministers. In particular: •

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The creation of a strong, functional, centre of government, overseeing effective prioritisation and the planning of activity and resources, would help Ministers determine how to focus their leadership of departments. Strengthening the role and working of departmental boards would help Ministers direct effectively, with support from distinguished non-executives, as well as officials, the development of policy ambitions into workable plans, the execution of those plans, and talent management in departments.

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Completely overhauling Civil Service talent will improve departmental performance and reduce Ministers’ concerns about being held responsible for failure.

This paper proposes some additional, practical changes to Ministers’ preparation, personal development, selection and working arrangements. We recommend that: • • • • •

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the Government should make Ministerial training one of the main functions of the Queen Elizabeth II School of Public Service. the principal Opposition should have carefully defined access to top civil servants, in addition to the current pre-election access. the Government considers introducing a slightly longer transition along the lines of the Canadian approach. Permanent Secretaries improve the content and accessibility of initial briefings for incoming Ministers. the Government attempts, where possible, to create an interval between announcement and taking up position, to enable incoming Ministers to read up and be more fully briefed before they start work. the Government considers how it would be possible, by exception, to appoint as Ministers people who are not members of either House, and discusses with the Parliamentary authorities procedures which could enable such Ministers to be properly accountable to Parliament. the Government provides for Councils of Advisers for all Ministers, to provide them with personal specialist and expert advice, distinct from special advisers. the Government introduces ‘Commission letters’ for incoming Secretaries of State and that these are published. the Government makes more appointments to tackle single, clearly defined issues, especially where they span departmental boundaries. the Government seriously considers moving the Prime Minister’s working office to a new location, part of a larger single building housing other Ministers’ offices. Possible locations include Marlborough House, the QEII Centre, or the Parliamentary Estate. red boxes should be scrapped and replaced by modern workflow applications.

Ministers: obstacles to effectiveness Ministers begin their roles unprepared and have little access to training or professional development “The extraordinary thing about being a minister is you can be pitched into a department where you have absolutely no prior knowledge of it at all.”4 Nicky Morgan, former Education Secretary Gaps in knowledge and skills before entering office, and the lack of induction, training and professional development in office, extend the time it takes for Ministers to get to a point at which they feel they are working effectively. Frequent reshuffles mean Ministers have to go through the learning process repeatedly. Most cannot delay decisions until they have developed this expertise. They are expected to start making decisions, which can have a real impact on citizens, from day one. This is not conducive to setting clear, long-term priorities for their department or for their own time in office.

Lack of prior knowledge Ministers rarely come into office with high levels of previous experience or deep expertise about their new areas of responsibility. The skillset required to be a backbench MP is not the same as that required to succeed as a Minister. Many newly appointed Ministers do not have a strong understanding of how government works. Former Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone described just how much she had to learn: “I literally didn’t have a clue. I didn’t even know what a submission was. Literally nothing”.5 In contrast, experience builds skill and confidence. David Gauke found, “Certainly as time went on, when I knew the subject matter well, it actually reduces your workload very considerably, because you can re-direct your efforts more efficiently as you’re not having to get on top of a subject every time.”6 Although they are not responsible for operational activity, Ministers lead enormous organisations, some with more than 70,000 employees. Yet many MPs lack any management experience whatsoever. Those who do come in with management expertise, report that civil servants are often surprised when they lay out their priorities, ask for management information, and take a more formal approach to monitoring progress, in ways that would be standard in the private sector.7 The lack of management skills slows implementation and can create tension with the civil service. Justine Greening felt this was a problem for some of her colleagues: “Part of this is, I think, ministers needing to know what they have to see and when they have to see it in order to have assurance that things are happening on the ground as they expect. Otherwise it’s like a The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

black box. You just sign up on the submission and then it may or may not ever happen. Then I guess you end up being a minister that complains that civil servants don’t do stuff, but maybe if you had all the right governance around it, you would be able to work with them to make sure your stuff happens.” 8 George Osborne described the difficulty faced by British Prime Ministers: “You’re quite limited in the range of talent you can bring in. You either have the odd person parachuted in through the House of Lords or you create kitchen cabinets around prime ministers which are opaque and feel unaccountable – look at the controversy around Boris Johnson’s kitchen cabinet”9 Ministers appointed to roles in which they have a strong background are very much an exception. Lord Myners worked in finance for more than 30 years before he was appointed as a Treasury Minister. He said, “I think you wouldn’t organise anything else on the basis of having lay people decide upon these quite technical issues.”10 This is in contrast to other systems where ministerial appointments from outside of the legislature are common, such as in France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. Appointees in these systems are still usually ‘political insiders’, but are much more regularly drawn from the private sector and academia and are experts in their areas of responsibility.11

Lords Ministers A minority of Ministers are members of the Lords, though not now usually at Secretary of State level, with no such permanent appointments since 2010. There are some upsides, for example Lords Ministers do not have to manage simultaneously the pressures of being constituency representatives. Prime Ministers can bring people into government as Lords who are not current politicians, to widen talent and bring specific expertise to certain roles. This was common under Prime Ministers Gordon Brown (the ‘goats’, part of his ‘government of all talents’) and David Cameron, both of whom appointed several people with expertise in economics, banking and finance to help manage the aftermath of the financial crisis, as well as in other areas.12 But this comes with other difficulties. Lords Ministers are usually less familiar with the workings of government and Parliament, and so still face a steep learning curve.13 As the sole Lords Minister for a department, they often find themselves used as workhorses, speaking for it across the whole range of the department’s business. As Lord O’Shaughnessy said: “I don’t know how well it’s appreciated just how much parliamentary stuff the Lords ministers have to do because you’re on your own… you can pretty much guarantee two or three outings a week for questions or debates… in the Lords of course, what you’re doing, because you’re on your own, is you’re not just talking to your own

policy brief, you’re talking to everybody’s policy brief.” 14 Conversely, members of the House of Commons cannot hold Lords Ministers to account directly in their Chamber. The ‘goats’ had a mixed record of success.15 Lords are not accountable to the public like MPs – they cannot be voted out of office – although they are scrutinised by other peers. There are also concerns around the size of and balance of parties in the House of Lords. In 2010, the Public Administration Select Committee recommended “that the Ministerial Code require Ministers who were appointed to the House of Lords in order to take up their duties to resign from that House upon their departure from government.”16

Narrow range of backgrounds There is limited professional diversity in the pool from which Prime Ministers choose their Ministers too. In the corporate sector, the need for cognitive diversity, based on different personal and professional backgrounds, is well understood.17 There is a tendency for Ministers, by contrast, to be drawn from a narrower range of backgrounds. Conservative MPs mostly have a background in business or finance. Labour MPs are most likely to have come from politics or unions.18 The number of professional politicians in Cabinets is even higher than among MPs.19 Former Ministers with very different backgrounds – as lawyers, consultants, businesspeople, special advisers, or in local government and NGOs – found their past experience valuable.

Turnover With each reshuffle, a significant number of Ministers have to go through the learning process again. For veteran Minister Ken Clarke, “After two years, you are sitting in control now, behind your desk, where you are really going to do this, this, and this. And then the phone rings and the prime minister is having a reshuffle and you move on to the next department and you are back at the beginning, there you are, panicking again.”20 Reshuffles work very differently from reassignments in the private sector, where promotions are, to a greater extent, based on performance and experience. Many former Ministers were frustrated that, even as they were promoted up the ranks, their new roles did not seem to reflect their expertise any more than their first appointment. Former schools Minister Jim Knight called it a “big frustration”: “any kind of sense of managing the talent properly and really aligning people and their skills and strengths to where they’d be best deployed as opposed to sort of trying to promote and deal with the patronage and some of the sort of less edifying sides of politics.”21 The Prime Minister could never manage or appraise ministers in the same way as in the private sector, but it is clear that Ministers would welcome, believing they would be more effective, a The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

clear focus on nurturing talent and developing experience. Those promoted within their department often hugely appreciate the opportunity to continue working on an area they, by then, are familiar with, and with civil servants with whom they have developed strong working relationships.22

Induction and training There have been some attempts to prepare Shadow Cabinets, for example by the Labour party in 1997, and a programme organised by the Institute for Government in 2015.23 Party-organised sessions have often focused on policy priorities and how to implement them, rather than the nuts and bolts of being a Minister running a department. However, former Ministers report that sessions taking place close to elections were not taken as seriously as they might have been, because all focus was on campaigning and there was tacit acknowledgement that not all members of the Shadow Cabinet would make their way into the same positions in government. 24 They found hearing from former Ministers valuable, however. The civil service takes briefing and induction for new Ministers seriously. Many Ministers are impressed by the extent to which civil servants are already familiar with their manifesto policies and have worked up options for implementing them. However again, this has a focus on developing policy rather than the basics of running a department. Chris Huhne, former Energy Secretary, suggested “It might have been sensible to have literally a PowerPoint presentation at the beginning saying, you know, ‘What does the department do’.”25 Many also felt that the civil service induction packs were far too long: “if anyone’s got past page 50, well done! Because you start reading it and suddenly the job’s on top of you”.26 There have also been some professional development sessions for new Ministers. For instance, during the Blair Government, junior Labour Ministers attended events organised by the National School of Government on financial and risk management. 27 Good Secretaries of State act as mentors to their junior Ministers, carving out areas over which they can have full responsibility and many learn simply from watching more experienced Ministers. Some develop relationships with their predecessors, which they find helpful. When he was appointed Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw “contacted Douglas Hurd, a predecessor of mine who was a friend, and still is, asked him to come in, to tell me how to do the job, and asked him for a reading list.”28 However, political differences can make that sensitive. But there is no overarching effort to assess the skills and needs of Ministers, against what they need to be effective, and identify what kind of support they need. There are some cultural challenges around providing training. Some report that they find it difficult to ask for help once in office. This was a struggle for Harriet Harman: “You have to command the confidence and sustain the confidence of your department. You can’t really turn round to The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

the permanent secretary and the head of your private office and say, “Actually, I haven’t a clue what I am doing”29 Some have been reluctant to acknowledge when they did seek help. It can be difficult to ask for more time to understand a certain issue or to settle on priorities and sometimes, immediate decisions really are required. The packed calendar of Ministers can also make it difficult to set aside time for any inductions or training, even for those who want to participate. The lack of training and induction is a difficulty that Ministers face in other countries too. However, members of the legislature receive more training in other systems, which helps them to at least have a better understanding of how government works and the role of Ministers (they usually learn about this in the context of effective scrutiny).30 In local government, councillors have more options for formalised inductions and training.31 It is now standard in the corporate world to think about how the leadership team can be best supported to be effective, and to develop a mix of training, coaching and mentoring tailored to their needs. Ongoing professional development and executive coaching have become more and more popular over the past few decades, for junior leaders with promise up to chief executives.32

A lack of clear direction or mandate limits impact and accountability “I wasn’t aware of any job description and in fact I didn’t really have any very clear mandate, at all. I regarded it as my job just to make sure that so far as possible, the show stayed on the road.” 33 Oliver Letwin, former Cabinet Office Minister Ministers are there to provide their departments and teams with direction. Without being able to base that on clear direction from the Prime Minister, it is much harder for Ministers to do this in their departments. As with the lack of expertise, it means Ministers spend more time in office deciding on what it is that they want to achieve, without the help of a framework of government priorities in which to decide this. A lack of direction from the centre can also result in policies across government that are not well coordinated or as strategic as they should be, with individual Secretaries of State working up and on their own priorities separately. Even with many priorities agreed in the Coalition negotiations, Chris Huhne found that “The difficulty with government compared with most organisations is that the goals are not as well defined… So there’s plenty of room for ongoing disagreements about what the overarching key goals are.”34

Direction from the Prime Minister and centre Many Ministers do not receive much direction from the Prime Minister upon their appointment (and have rarely worked out their own priorities prior to appointment), a point well expressed in Oliver Letwin’s remark quoted at the beginning of this section. That has been the experience The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

under various Prime Ministers. In his first ministerial role in the Department for Education and Skills, John Healey recalled “I had no brief from the Prime Minister [Tony Blair] when he gave me the call to appoint me to the job.”35 An unclear purpose also limits the ability of Ministers to focus their resources, and the department’s, on core priorities. Instead, they can end up spread too thinly across a number of important issues without a structure for prioritisation. A lack of clear direction is an issue for accountability too. Any assessment of the performance of a Minister will be necessarily vague, if it was not clear what the Minister was supposed to do in the first place. Direction should not simply be handed down from the PM (or from a Secretary of State). Ministers should have room to shape their own mandates. But these should be developed within an overarching vision and plan for government. The flip side of this lack of clarity is the opportunity it creates for confident and capable Ministers to define their own agenda. For former Justice Secretary David Gauke, for instance, it meant “he [the Prime Minister] let me get on with it.”36 But, this assumes that there will be political support from Number 10, the Treasury and the Cabinet for whatever policy priorities an individual decides on, and risks that they will not be well coordinated with the priorities other Ministers settle on. Again, this is very different to in the private sector, a point not lost on Ministers who have a corporate background. Jeremy Hunt, who founded multiple companies prior to entering Parliament, described the contrast: “What is very striking in British politics is how unlike in the private sector, when someone takes on a job they will spend a huge amount of time with their boss saying: “This is what I want you to do, this is how I want you to approach it.” You really don’t spend any time doing that in politics and you just get thrown into things.” 37 Those who were given clear priorities, or had an obvious mandate based on prominent manifesto policies, reported positive experiences, as did those who felt empowered by the PM. As Minister for Loneliness, Tracey Crouch appreciated the fact that this was a priority area for Number 10: “Downing Street led [on loneliness]... We used Downing Street to help us get other departments to buck up their ideas… It was like going back to your mum to tell on your little sister, but it was quite helpful.” 38

Ministerial teams Ministerial teams as a whole also need a clear sense of purpose. Since junior Ministers often play a critical role in leading policy implementation, a united ministerial team is very important to the success of a Secretary of State. A clear direction from the PM to a Secretary of State, can allow that Secretary of State to then divide up responsibilities in a way that corresponds to political The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

priorities and makes strategic sense, and allow junior Ministers to get on with their work, within a clear overarching direction. As with Cabinet Ministers and the PM, where junior Ministers are empowered by the Secretary of State, they can have much more impact in the department: “If there’s a junior minister that matters, the junior minister matters because the junior minister has the confidence of the secretary of state.”39 Unfortunately, this is not always the way things work. Some Ministers in the same department simply do not interact all that often, missing opportunities where their work could complement each other. There can be competition between Ministers within one department, and resentment of Secretaries of State who micromanage their junior colleagues.40 The Institute for Government points out that, “in contrast to the corporate world, ministers are not usually appointed with a view to achieving a balance of skills in a team.”41

Many ministers feel they do not have enough support “In those first months I had felt rather as though I had been parachuted behind enemy lines, with absolutely no instructions, no communication link back to headquarters, was simply foraging off the local countryside and doing what I hoped central command would have wanted me to do.” 42 Nick Harvey, former Defence Minister. Appointed into roles unrelated to their experience, for which in any case, almost no one could possess all the requisite skills, and facing a dearth of training, induction or professional development, many Ministers end up feeling overwhelmed and isolated.

What support is needed? Support from advisers and the officials closest to them becomes crucial to their success. But many feel that they do not have sufficient support to get their policy priorities implemented. Ministers require a range of different types of support: • • • • •

Technical: advisors with a deep understanding of their areas of responsibility and, ideally, with already established relationships with key external experts. Delivery: to keep track of progress on their key priorities and ensure flagship policies are implemented, or on the track to successful implementation, within their limited time in office. Political. Media. Practical: to manage their diary, constituency work and so on. Some former Ministers say their diary manager was the key to their effectiveness.43

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Parliamentary: many speak of how valuable it is to have a civil servant close to them who really understands how parliament works, and takes the duties of a Minister to it seriously.

These types of support are provided variously by the private office, special advisers and departmental officials.

Special advisers Junior Ministers have less special adviser support than Secretaries of State. Some wished they had more political support. Former energy Minister Greg Barker felt, “There was this commitment when we came into government to reduce the number of spads [special advisers] and it was a totally huge error. ...I think [you must] ensure that you have proper, efficient, professional delivery of policy, but through a prism that reflects the values of the minister, and reflects their priorities.”44 Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd spoke of the need for more expert support, a desire reflected by others responsible for particularly technical or fast-moving policy areas: “I do think the new secretary of state could do with expert spads alongside them rather than just people fighting your corner with other spads… where you need more spads is somewhere like the Home Office where everything comes at you so fast.”45

Oversight and progress-chasing Ministers’ central teams lack sufficient strategic and management capability to provide firm direction and oversight for their departments. Several former Ministers felt there should be more delivery support for Ministers to account for this. Nicky Morgan explained that “particularly, if you’re a government department with a big reform programme, it does help to have additional people who are not private secretaries, but are there to push particular policies and to hold officials’ feet to the fire to make sure that things happen in a way that aligns with your priorities and they are dropping things that aren’t the priority.”46 Liam Byrne argued “Every minister needs a delivery unit and actually that should be based in your private office.”47 This is partly because of the small size of the private office, and limited number of special advisers, relative to the department, and partly because of inadequate data and capability. Without sufficient strategic capacity, Ministers, and their offices, can end up defaulting to dealing with issues as they come – there is always a new crisis. It is, however, arguable that this is a case of correct diagnosis, wrong solution. If Ministers lack confidence that their department can turn their directions into workable plans, and then implement them, while feeding back the information they need for assurance, that suggests serious failings of corporate governance, management and capability. Such failings need to be addressed directly, including through ensuring effective governance, better management of project portfolios and improving Civil Service capability. We have made or will be making The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

proposals on these fronts in other papers.48 Ad hoc capability in or around Ministers’ private offices is a sticking-plaster solution.

A mismatch between ministerial authority and accountability “It’s about being kebab-ed for things that you didn’t do but are accountable for by somebody else’s mistake.” 49 David Hanson, former Justice Minister The convention of ministerial accountability is set out in the Ministerial Code: “Ministers have a duty to Parliament to account, and be held to account, for the policies, decisions and actions of their departments and agencies”.50 Most of the Ministerial Code however, concerns issues of propriety, rather than performance, and it is on those issues that it is most commonly invoked. It also lays out broad principles, rather than any strict lines of accountability. The reality of ministerial accountability is a lot more complicated. The line between what a Minister is actually responsible for, and what they are not, is not always clear and discussions tends to be focused on blame, rather than really figuring out what went wrong and why, and preventing it from occurring in future. Even existing conventions of accountability are not always evenly enforced.

Ministers and civil servants The relationship between civil servants and Ministers is critical to ministerial impact – the “fulcrum of Whitehall effectiveness” according to The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.51 It is also the key to understanding Ministerial accountability, including understanding those elements which are unclear. Peter Hennessy characterised the relationship as a ‘governing marriage’.52 This goes beyond the traditional picture that civil servants simply work for Ministers, who are the ones accountable to Parliament. Peter Riddell describes this view: “Ministers would be accountable in public and in Parliament for policy errors and blunders but they would not blame individual civil servants, whose failings would be addressed internally and privately.” 53 However, there are many ambiguities within the civil servant-Minister relationship, in particular around the specific responsibilities of each party to the marriage, and a number of threats to an easy marriage, and in turn to a clear picture of accountability.54 There is not always a strict division between the responsibilities of a Secretary of State and their Permanent Secretary and the line between strategic and operational decisions is not always clear. Both, for instance, may be closely involved in the implementation of key policy priorities – the Minister’s responsibility does not stop once a policy has been decided upon. But when it seems that the wrong person is being held to account, or it is obvious that the right person is not – whether that is a Minister or civil servant – it can breed public distrust. The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

Ministers on the line Many Ministers feel responsible for everything that happens in their departments – and especially everything that goes wrong – in a way that does not correspond to their actual powers. Nicky Morgan put it simply: “You are ‘it’.”55 Many outside government seem to take this view too (perhaps why Ministers feel this way). We often hear calls for Ministers to take the blame for events far beyond their control, or even what they should be focusing on. In January 2021, this was the case for Home Secretary Priti Patel, following the accidental deletion of records in the police national computer. While it is right that she should explain to Parliament what happened, and ensure that the department is working to prevent it from happening again, this failure resulting from human error56 is not her personal responsibility. The assumption of this level of personal responsibility can be very difficult for Ministers to manage, and some of course do end up resigning for these sorts of operational or management issues with which they had little to do. Former justice Minister David Hanson, described the pressure: “I ended up being on the front of The Sun because G4S have tagged the wrong leg. Now, what do I do about that? Am I accountable for it? Yes, I am. Am I responsible for it? No, I’m not.”57 In terms of accountability, it is also not particularly productive to blame a Minister for something outside of their remit, rather than focusing on what actually went wrong, where, and why.

Civil Service capability Ministers are sometimes particularly frustrated that they have to take on this enormous personal responsibility for the actions of civil servants whom they do not appoint, and while they feel they cannot hold civil servants to account, because they cannot sack them either. Alan Johnson said when he was Health Secretary, he had to “argue vociferously” for civil servants to be fired after wrongdoing: “This is the incredible part of the Civil Service, they don’t sack anyone, either in their world or in associated worlds, they always believe in moving them on somewhere else, which is really weird.” 58 The imbalance is summarised by Peter Riddell: “A secretary of state is not expected to take personal responsibility for all administrative actions for which he or she is accountable to Parliament. But, in political terms, ministers feel an imbalance between their accountability and their powers and some have complained that their decisions are deliberately blocked (in a few cases) or frustrated by civil servants resistant to what they want.”59 Their lack of say over key civil service appointments is a longstanding concern of Ministers. They now have more of a role in making appointments to departmental boards, but the extent to which Permanent Secretaries engage Ministers in staff appointments varies.60 The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

The balance sometimes swings in the other direction too. Some Ministers have been increasingly critical of the performance of the civil service generally and even willing to criticise individual civil servants in the press (although mostly anonymously). Civil servants are not able to publicly defend themselves or reply. The then Cabinet Secretary, now Lord Sedwill, said in July 2020 that the increase in anonymous briefings against officials was not only "demoralising" but "damaging to the process of governance".61 Civil servants are, in some cases, held responsible for strategic decisions that a Minister must have made.

Getting it right versus arguing about blame The issues in the Department for Education in the summer of 2020 illustrate the tensions that can be caused by a lack of clarity over lines of accountability. Following a series of high-profile U-turns around exam results and the problematic approach to school closures, Permanent Secretary Jonathan Slater stepped down. These decisions were not solely within the purview of the Permanent Secretary, but must also have involved Ministers as well as leaders of the relevant arm’s length bodies. The ensuing controversy around Slater’s dismissal demonstrates the need to define better the balance of responsibility between Ministers and civil servants, and between operational and strategic decisions. A clearer mandate for the Education Secretary, and the department, to begin with could also bring more transparency to the reasons behind decisions, especially where U-turns are necessary. Moreover, the problems with the initial decisions around exams and schools highlight the need for better assurance of decision-making in the first place. A properly functioning board would be one important piece in strengthening the way departments assess the risks around policy design and delivery, and enabling Ministers to establish better risk mitigations. Michael Gove said recently that Ministers should “accept greater responsibility and accountability.”62 The Policy Exchange Reform of Government Commission has suggested that Ministers should make greater use of formal Directions to the department, to take ownership of decisions which officials think are risky, but which they, on balance, prefer.63 We agree that the use of Directions is often an appropriate and sensible way of making clear who is responsible for decisions. The discussion about accountability, whether of Ministers or officials, should not be dominated by who is to blame. Too much focus on this can lead to short-term, overly cautious decisions, over which control can easily be maintained, constraining the ability to innovate and the flexibility often required for successful projects. It can make civil servants more wary of challenging their Ministers, for fear of being blamed when things to do not pan out as planned. Effective accountability will sometimes need to involve consequences for poor performance, even more wilful recklessness or malfeasance. But, as it is in the corporate world, it should principally be about understanding what happened, correcting failures, learning from The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

mistakes, and preventing their recurrence. It should also include learning from and rewarding success. Our view, then, is that the focus in improving government performance should be, much more strongly, about making strategy, delivery, digital and talent right in the first place, and then learning from experience, rather than arguing about blame.

Making Ministers more effective In this section, we move on from a statement of the problem to proposals for change. Addressing the problems requires both radical change to the way government works generally (explored in other Commission papers), and changing the way Ministers themselves are selected, prepared, trained, supported and managed (explored in this paper).

How wider reforms to government will help Ministers be more effective Ministers’ experience that they do not have a strong direction and mandate is symptomatic of a broader lack of strategic direction and planning in government, which we address in our paper How can government improve financial and business planning?.64 If adopted, the proposals there for a strong government planning process would provide a much stronger basis for Ministers being clear about their direction and priorities. The concerns which Ministers have about not having adequate personal support, and being exposed to personal political risk arising from issues of management and capability in their department and organisations involved in delivery, would, in part, be addressed by proposals in a number of our papers. In particular: •

How can government improve financial and business planning? proposes a framework for assessing and improving departmental planning and management capability, and Why is government failing to deliver projects successfully? explores the barriers to departments’ management of their project portfolios.65

•

Departmental Boards: Boosting Reform proposes strengthening the remit of departmental boards and improvements to their ways of working, to increase their effectiveness in assisting Ministers to run their departments – in relation to ensuring the effective translation of intent into strategy and plans, overseeing delivery, and overseeing talent through formally constituted Remcos or people committees.66

•

Our paper on talent and competence, Instilling a high-performance culture in the Civil Service proposes ways of increasing government’s access to skills and talent, and ensuring it is deployed effectively.

Reforms to the appointment, training and ways of working of Ministers In this paper we explore ways in which the appointment, training and ways of working of Ministers themselves could be improved to address the problems explored in the first part of the paper. Our main focus is on how to improve Ministers’ preparation, induction and training. But we also look at how people with specific skills could be brought into government, and how Ministers could work as a team with a clear sense of purpose.

Preparation, induction and training In our political system, it remains likely that, on the whole, people will be appointed as Ministers without high levels of prior experience, about the specifics of their departments’ business, and more generally about the leadership of large and complex organisations. That, and the uniquely challenging role of Ministers, means that preparation, induction and training should not be largely left to chance, as they are at the moment. The distinctive political context in which Prime Ministers make choices about Ministerial appointments mean that there is never likely to be a complete solution to these problems, but we set out below some changes which would make a positive difference. We certainly believe it is possible for there to be a stronger focus than now on nurturing talent and developing experience among Ministers and those aspiring to front bench positions. We welcome the Government’s recognition of the need for Ministerial training, with a focus on project management and policy delivery. 67 Policy Exchange’s recent reform commission recommended training for Ministers on such topics as procurement, digital and constitutional issues.68 Below are our specific proposals. Training for aspiring Ministers One way of ensuring that at least some Ministers are better prepared for the role would be to set up a course for up-and-coming politicians. This could either be for politicians alone or, we suggest more usefully, mix them with other public leaders, including Opposition frontbenchers, politicians from the devolved countries and local government, senior civil servants, and aspiring top management in local government, the NHS, education and the police. As in existing joint MBA-MPP or MPA programs69, participants would learn about core management areas common across sectors (finance and leadership for instance) as well as areas specific to the public sector (differences in accountability and reporting for instance). This would allow for some mixing with those on executive MBA courses, which could help to break down the cultural barriers between the government and the private sector. A programme along these lines, targeted at a sufficiently senior level, would also help to encourage the interchange of talent and ideas between different parts of the public sector, whether civil service and Ministers or Whitehall and local government. It could help to address the deficit in management skills among Ministers and in the senior civil The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

service before they reach the very top roles. Our paper on talent, Instilling a high-performance culture in the Civil Service, sets out proposals for the Queen Elizabeth II School of Public Service. Training for Ministers, alongside other aspiring leaders and, on specific topics, in politician-only modules, should be one of the School’s main roles. We recommend the Government should make Ministerial training one of the main functions of the Queen Elizabeth II School of Public Service. Opposition contact From time to time, government passes from one party to another, so one way of increasing the knowledge and insight of people appointed as Ministers would be for there to be more contact between the Opposition front bench and civil servants. At the moment, civil servants are not usually allowed to speak to opposition MPs. The exceptions are ‘access talks’ held ahead of elections, where members of the opposition can have confidential discussions with civil servants, without current Ministers, to discuss “departmental organisation and to inform civil servants of any organisational changes likely to take place in the event of a change of government. Senior civil servants may ask questions about the implications of opposition parties’ policy statements, although they would not normally comment on or give advice about policies.”70 There is flexibility around when access talks can begin but they must be approved by the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown allowed the opposition access 15 months before the 2010 election. 71 Requests by the Labour party to have more contact with the civil service in 2018 and 2019 were denied. With snap elections, the opposition gets very little chance to speak with the civil service. Access talks allow opposition MPs to start building relationships with civil servants and to learn more about departments. They also help senior civil servants to prepare for a change in government, by giving them some foresight of major reforms that the opposition party is planning to implement in government. In local government, opposition councillors have regular and ongoing contact with officials, partly because of a difference in size and culture compared to Whitehall and partly convention. Councillors for instance, are able to contact officers directly while MPs are supposed to go through Ministers.72 Pre-election contact is also more wide-ranging, although still involves a distinction between operational and policy discussions. In Australia, opposition contact with officials is permitted from three months before the end of a Parliamentary term. Interestingly, the emphasis is less on policy than on “the machinery of government and administration” and “the administrative and technical practicalities and procedures involved in implementation of policies.”73 Once- or twice-yearly briefings by departmental Civil Service top teams to Opposition front bench teams could surely be managed without compromising civil servants’ principal loyalty to The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

the government of the day. Civil servants are well used to dialogue with opposition politicians, notably in Parliamentary committees. Opposition politicians would have strong incentives not to abuse such a process, for example by engaging in point-scoring. We recommend the principal Opposition should have carefully defined access to top civil servants, in addition to the current pre-election access. Short transition following an election Following an election, Prime Ministers form a government very quickly, and Ministers have to hit the ground running. This contrasts with many other countries. At the opposite extreme, in the US, there are 10 or 11 weeks between the election and the inauguration during which a large transition team prepares for government. This involves “helping to familiarize the incoming Administration with the operations of the executive branch, and developing a comprehensive policy platform”74 but the most significant part of the transition is making the thousands of necessary political appointments, completely without parallel in the British system. Such a long transition would be neither necessary nor workable in the UK’s very different constitutional setup. However, in systems where coalitions are common, as in much of Europe, there also tends to be a few weeks between elections and a government taking office. Closest to home in terms of constitution is Canada, where the transition typically takes around two weeks. 75 The process prior to the election and during this transition is mostly focused upon the new Prime Minister, rather than Ministers, but does allow for more “extensive briefing by the Secretary to the Cabinet and consideration of organisational and resource issues.”76 We recommend that the Government considers introducing a slightly longer transition along the lines of the Canadian approach. Improving Civil Service briefing Civil servants are constrained in the content of their briefing for incoming Ministers, not least because they cannot cover the political aspects. But, drawing on the comments of former Ministers about the content and presentation of current briefings, it could be that initial briefing packs could be shorter and rely more on data visualisation to cut down on text. They could also include more of an overview of the department and how it works, the role and functioning of the Departmental Board, and management information data for Ministers to begin to get to grips with the department. It may also be sensible to have a phased induction which highlights what

Ministers need to know and do on day one, at the end of week one, at the end of their first month and so on. Announcing reshuffles before they take effect More often, Ministers come into office during the term of a government, following a reshuffle. Not infrequently, major reshuffles coincide with the summer Parliamentary recess. One possibility therefore would be to announce moves just before recess, but to take effect (say) on 1 September, to give new Ministers some breathing space in their first weeks in a job. Urgent issues still come up in this period but as, Nicky Morgan describes it, “the pressure [is] off a bit. Nobody expects to hear from you that often in recess.”77 Without being in the department, and while someone else is still occupying the role, this would only allow for a partial preparation, but an appointee would at least have more time to learn about their area of responsibility and decide where their focus needs to be. Another option would be a grace period after appointment: a period in which Ministers are in their new role but can avoid some demands of the job such as routine Parliamentary activity or media appearances, barring genuine emergencies or urgent issues. As with the summer recess, removing some of the pressures of the role for a limited period of time may allow for more time for induction-type activities. The timing of reshuffles is often not in Government’s hands, but we recommend the Government attempts, where possible, to create an interval between announcement and taking up position, to enable incoming Ministers to read up and be more fully briefed before they start work.

Drawing on wider talent for Ministerial appointments Appointing people with expertise to the Lords and making them Ministers is therefore a possibility, but comes with a range of downsides. Another option would be to appoint genuinely non-parliamentary Ministers. This would allow for expert Ministers while avoiding the problems associated with appointment via the Lords. Although this would be a “considerable constitutional innovation”, it is possible.78 In his evidence session with the Commission, George Osborne recognised the case for being able to appoint from outside Parliament, not least to provide a more transparent and accountable mechanism for Prime Ministers to bring people into government than “kitchen cabinets.”79 The posts of Lord Advocate and Solicitor General for Scotland have been held by nonparliamentarians in the past, as have other positions during wartime.80 In South Africa, up to two Ministers can be appointed who are not members of Parliament.81 John Major and Douglas Hurd proposed a similar system for the UK in 2009. 82 As with Lords Ministers, the House of Commons The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

could develop mechanisms to ensure these Ministers were adequately scrutinised. For instance, the Business and Enterprise Committee noted that “the Standing Orders provide for a Minister of the Crown, whether or not a Member of the House [of Commons], to make a statement and answer questions upon it in a grand committee, meeting in a large committee room.”83 Some of the controversy over the last year the status and accountability of David Frost, Dido Harding and Kate Bingham could have been avoided if it had been possible to appoint them straightforwardly as Ministers, with mechanisms for Parliamentary accountability. We recommend the Government considers how it would be possible, by exception, to appoint as Ministers people who are not members of either House, and discusses with the Parliamentary authorities procedures which could enable such Ministers to be properly accountable to Parliament.

Personal advice and support Councils of advisers Generally, UK Ministers have had limited scope to make their own appointments to advisory roles. In principle, they are limited to two special advisers, though that limit seems often to be breached.84 There have been other routes for making personal appointments, notably the appointment of specialist advisers for up to two years.85 Since the time of Gordon Brown, Chancellors have appointed a Council of Economic Advisers.86 In 2013, the Coalition Government offered Secretaries of State the option of setting up Extended Ministerial Offices (EMOs). Take-up was initially slow, it is suggested because the process was cumbersome and some required features were not attractive to Ministers.87 However, after the 2015 election, five offices were established – only for Theresa May to remove the option after she became Prime Minister in 2016.88 Despite their brief history, there is some evidence that EMOs enabled new kinds of talent to be brought into departments, distinct both from the career Civil Service and special advisers.89 One of the Ministers who set one up, in Defra, Liz Truss, “likened its staff to ‘bicarbonate of soda’, helping to fizz and bubble up great ideas embedded in the department and bring them to the surface.”90 Her Permanent Secretary, Clare Moriarty, was also supportive: “[They] allowed us to access a different group of people who can come in and ask questions – who see the world in a different way… They are specialists but they’re not like special advisers.”91 We therefore propose that all Secretaries of State should be able to appoint (in less bureaucratic language than EMOs) a Council of Advisers. However, if the Government again makes them an option for Ministers, it should be very clear, in line with the Defra experience, that they provide The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

a distinctly different kind of support from special advsers. As IfG has put it: “in a particular subject area, a particular type of analysis or driving a particular programme of reform – and bring fresh impetus to a department comfortable with discussing and debating ideas.”92 Although these would be personal appointments, there should be independent oversight, to ensure integrity standards are observed. We suggest: • •

• •

•

A cap of six on the number of advisers. A clear definition of their role, as distinct from special advisers: that they are to be appointed to support Ministers either on specific topics, or on aspects of departmental effectiveness (for example) digital which are of particular Ministerial interest. Their appointment is linked to the tenure of the Secretary of State (though an incoming Secretary of State could retain advisers). Obvious bars are applied: close family, pecuniary or other inappropriate relationships with the Secretary of State or other Ministers, and that they are ‘fit and proper’, for example in relation to criminal records or any professional misconduct. Improper behaviour by a Minister in using their appointment powers should be a breach of the Ministerial Code. The integrity of adviser appointments should either be supervised by the Civil Service Commissioner or a new equivalent process, for example an appointments board including independent members.

We recommend that the Government provides for Councils of Advisers for all Ministers, to provide them with personal specialist and expert advice, distinct from special advisers. Special advisers Special advisers often arrive in departments with some of the same inexperience as many Ministers, about the specifics of their departments’ business, and more generally about the leadership of large and complex organisations. They should have access to a structured induction and training programme which helps them support their Ministers and decision-making in the department effectively. We note that the Policy Exchange Commission has also argued for better training.93 We recommend the introduction of structured induction and training for special advisers.

Improving sense of purpose and teamwork ‘Commission letters’ There is currently no established way of setting out and recording the Prime Minister’s expectations of Ministers on appointment. In Canada, the Prime Minister assigns objectives to cabinet Ministers in mandate letters. These list the principal objectives the Prime Minister envisages for each Minister, and, in order to bring about effective working on issues involving more than one department, the Prime Minister’s expectations about how Ministers should work together.94 The letters also outline the approach the Prime Minister wants members of his Government to take on things such as transparency, the media, engagement with civil society, and cross-party collaboration.95 They are typically issued with the formation of a new government after an election, but can be updated, as they were for instance in January 2021 to prioritise aspects of the fight against and recovery from Covid-19. The letters are now published online, and the public can track the progress Ministers have made toward objectives on a dedicated website.96 The letters are framed as being about open government, coordination and accountability, rather than central control, and are one element of how the Prime Minister holds Ministers to account.97 The creation of a strong Plan for Government, as recommended in our paper How can government improve financial and business planning? would provide a clear basis for drafting such letters.98 We recommend the Government introduces ‘Commission letters’ for incoming Secretaries of State and that these are published. Special-purpose Ministers On occasion, Ministers are appointed to a single-issue role, with a clear mandate handed down by the Prime Minister. This helps to ensure a government priority is really pursued and for the Prime Minister, is also a public signal of the significance of an issue to them. When Richard Harrington was appointed Minister for Syrian Refugees in 2015, he recalled “I asked Cameron why he appointed me to do this as a Minister, both me particularly but also a Minister more generally. And he said because he knew if a Minister was doing it, it would be a priority otherwise it would just be dealt with in a load of figures and he would in the end get egg on his face for not delivering what he said.”99 This sort of role is particularly valuable when a policy involves coordinating activity in a number of different departments and outside Whitehall, and where there is not an existing structure for delivery. Harrington, for instance, was a joint Minister in the Home Office, Department of Communities and Local Government, and Department for International Development, with civil servants seconded from each department to work on his team. If the Government moves The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

towards more use of structures which bring departments together to tackle shared problems, as we have argued they should, more such appointments would help provide political leadership. In contrast to other roles, such special-purpose appointments are often made based on the particular background of an individual. This was the case for Lord Myners, who had a very clear mandate: “unlike other new Ministers, I was confronted with a single item agenda: the banking system. I had nothing else to do really over the first six months except work on that…. I was exercising ministerial authority, but I was under no illusions that I would not have been invited to be a Minister for anything other than this role.” Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment Nadhim Zahawi may not have had medical or scientific expertise, but his business experience had built him a reputation as a calculated risk-taker and able to manage logistics.100 With defined objectives and a clear mandate from the Prime Minister, and the authority granted to them on that basis, each of these Ministers was able to make a success of their responsibilities (although Zahawi’s task continues). We recommend the Government makes more appointments to tackle single, clearly defined issues, especially where they span departmental boundaries. Offices: modern workplaces for a smart government Organisations have long understood the importance of physical workplaces for organisational effectiveness, including promoting desired cultural characteristics, like team-working. This surely applies to the Government’s political leaders, as much as anyone else. As Jonathan Powell said in our evidence session about No10: “Yes, the building does shape it. You have people working out of bathrooms. You have a hierarchy of people in the most inconvenient places you can't find them. Proximity is power, so the closer you sit to prime minister, more power you have – so you have eight people crammed into the room outside his door. There are all sorts of ridiculous things, and if we were designing a rational government from beginning you'd definitely move to an open plan office in a in a building somewhere.” 101 10, Downing Street is an outstanding historic building at the heart of Westminster, and highly suitable as the personal residence and ceremonial base of the Prime Minister. However, as the evidence quoted above indicates, it is not a suitable location for a working office. Moving the working office to more suitable premises, which could be adapted as a modern workplace, would be a powerful symbol of the Government’s determination to create a modern, smart, Government.

There is also a case for the co-location of Ministers’ official offices. (To varying extent, they already spend time in their Parliamentary offices, which are on one site.) Locating all Ministers within one building, as they are in New Zealand (see box below) could help to bring more coordination across government and more collaboration on priority areas. Co-location was considered as an option under the Blair government but rejected because of security considerations. This would be a radical departure from the Whitehall system, in which Ministers operate as leaders of and in their departments. However, given this Government’s commitment to move significant numbers of civil servants out of London and set up secondary departmental bases in other parts of the country, the physical locations of Ministers will already need to be reconsidered. Robert Jenrick has already pledged that as well as his department moving 500 jobs to Wolverhampton, MHCLG Ministers will split their time between London and Wolverhampton.102 These changes, shaking up the extent to which a department is rooted to only one physical location, could also be an opportunity to rethink how Ministers operate while they are in Westminster. New Zealand’s experience is that co-location is not a panacea. As in the UK, siloes still persist and there could be more collaboration.103 In any case, simply having a much smaller number of civil servants and politicians makes it more likely that individuals will have connections across government in New Zealand than in the UK, as is the case in the devolved governments. There is also the concern that having centrally located Ministers weakens their relationships with public servants located in departments. Despite these risks, we suggest there is a strong case for rethinking the location of the Prime Minister’s working office and other Ministerial offices. Possible locations include Marlborough House, the QEII Centre, or the Parliamentary Estate. The latter is being refurbished anyway: since Ministers have offices there anyway, there would be obvious cost and security benefits. We recommend the Government seriously considers moving the Prime Minister’s working office to a new location, part of a larger single building housing other Ministers’ offices. Possible locations include Marlborough House, the QEII Centre, or the Parliamentary Estate.

New Zealand: The Beehive In New Zealand, rather than each working out of their department, Cabinet Ministers’ offices are centrally located in the ‘Beehive’. This building, built in the 1970s and formally called the Executive Wing, is located next to Parliament and also houses the Prime Minister’s offices, the Cabinet meeting room and the National Crisis Management Centre. The Cabinet room is on the top floor, with the Prime Minister below, and the offices of Cabinet Ministers on lower levels creating “something of a physical pecking order.”* Junior Ministers have offices in another building nearby. The New Zealand Cabinet is of a similar size to the British Cabinet, with 20 Ministers at present. As in Whitehall, each Minister’s office is made up of civil servants and political advisors. However, Ministers in New Zealand, as in Scotland, often have mixed portfolios and work with multiple departments. A Cabinet Minister will therefore have multiple departmental private secretaries who act, again as in Whitehall, as the bridge between their Ministers and their respective departments and are seconded from their departments into the Beehive. The main benefit of this structure is that it does allow for more contact and communication at the political level. As former Prime Minister Sir Bill English explains it, “Because the Ministers are all in the building, you can also have an informal stream of activity. If you get Ministers together and present data around how people experience public services, you can solve problems more quickly.”* The close working of Ministers also helps to bring about political agreement ahead of and in Cabinet, which creates a strong collective mandate for Ministers to deliver Cabinet priorities – “Cabinet really matters in New Zealand… if a decision has Cabinet approval then it is generally believed that it must be enacted.”* Together, this should encourage a more crosscutting approach to problems and more alignment between the priorities of different Minister. Ministerial briefing and decision-making in the digital age The use of despatch boxes for government papers goes back some 450 years to the reign of Elizabeth I; the current red boxes go back at least to the time of Gladstone. In the reign of Elizabeth II, and with paper everywhere being banished by much more efficient, digital, means of communication and decision-making, the way departments provide Ministers with information and secure decisions from them is outdated and does not realise the opportunities for modern technology to improve decision-making and enable Ministers to work more effectively. Whether through continued reliance on papers in traditional red boxes, or outdated electronic processes like emails and the circulation of pdf documents, current processes too often are cumbersome and involve high overheads and distraction for both Ministers and officials. The adoption by departments of modern workflow applications, like Slack or Element, which are widely use in the The Commission for Smart Government is powered by GovernUp, an initiative of The Project for Modern Democracy, a company limited by guarantee no. 8472163 and a registered charity in England and Wales no. 1154924. Privacy Notice.

corporate world, with proper protocols and safeguards, would make it easier for Ministers to have clear visibility of departmental performance, interact with officials, special advisers and others flexibly and efficiently, and ensure proposed action is soundly based, for example with properly completed business cases. We recommend red boxes are scrapped and replaced by modern workflow applications.

Authors The authors of this paper are Tess Kidney Bishop and Martin Wheatley. Tess is a freelance researcher, working on effective policymaking and implementation, domestic and global governance, and human rights. She was previously a Researcher at the Institute for Government, where she co-authored reports on financial and performance management, infrastructure policymaking, digital transformation, and the role of ministers. She has a Master's in Global Thought from Columbia University and a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. Martin is a former senior civil servant and local government professional, with experience on social policy, environment and housing including the Treasury, the Social Exclusion Unit, Croydon Council and the Local Government Association. An independent adviser and researcher since 2011, his published work on government reform includes reports on the centre of government and localism for GovernUp, and on government financial and performance management for the Institute for Government.

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