Recent days have been awash with commentaries on Starmer’s ability to grip Number 10 and the government machine – accompanied by a flurry of briefings and counter briefings on whether Sue Gray was part of the solution or the problem. A parade of 100 day obituaries has been penned on the new government. But we should remember that it took Blair until his second term to find a way to grip government to his satisfaction.
During his first three months Starmer has probably been the worst supported prime minister for decades.
Montage credit: Damian Shields
A new prime minister (PM) has the right to expect that their Civil Service will have its best people in place actively working on ideas to help them shape Number 10 and how best to play their role in a way that fits their agenda and personal style. But vacancies in key posts, a Cabinet Secretary whose authority had long since waned, and by some accounts an excess of gatekeeping and control from his then Chief of Staff have combined to sabotage the smooth and speedy reshaping of Number 10.
It is a good sign that he has acted quite quickly to fix this. A well-functioning Number 10 is the crucial foundation for his premiership. But to get a grip of his government he needs to do more:
Set clear direction and stick to it.
Appoint a cabinet secretary that he trusts and who has the authority and credibility to engage civil service leaders in driving the five missions of his government and overcoming the barriers that have unravelled the efforts of previous governments.
This is not the time for the traditional pick of ‘the cleverest man’ from the treasury as his principal civil service adviser. Instead, he should look for someone with a track record of collaborative leadership and cross system delivery. His choice will signal to the civil service whether he is serious about making the changes that will be necessary to deliver his government’s priorities.
Getting a grip 1: Shaping an effective Number 10
The challenge of gripping government has often perplexed incoming PM’s. They may expect an array of powerful levers to get things done, but their primary power is that of hiring and firing ministers and chairing the formal mechanisms of cabinet government.
UK is a global civil service outlier in that the form of Number 10 is profoundly shaped by the style and priorities of the PM. Most plans hatched in opposition for how a new government will run Number 10 tend to crumble within months of their first contact with the reality of the PM role.
The critical player in creating a well-functioning Number 10 has never been a chief of staff. Their existence tends to exacerbate ambiguity and conflict amongst the courtiers of Number 10 in particular with the PM’s key official adviser - the principal private secretary (PPS). Analysis by the Institute for Government shows they increasingly tend to fail quickly.
Those few who survive had the skills and intelligence to negotiate a space where they could add value – but there is no template, or even a compelling argument for the role. They are never seen to be running Number 10. It’s a role that makes sense in opposition but rarely once in power.
Instead, the effectiveness of Number 10 is determined by the interaction between two key roles and the qualities of those who occupy them. The first key role is that of the principal private secretary (PPS) to the PM who runs his private office. That private office is the primary day to day link between Number 10 and the rest of the Whitehall machine. The second key role, often more ambiguously drawn or split between several players, is whomever the PM sees as their principal political adviser (who will typically also oversee the ever-changing Number 10 Policy Unit, and only sometimes be given the title of Chief Of Staff). Into this mix comes the Cabinet Secretary who is critical to the PM getting the full weight of senior civil service leadership behind their agenda.
These roles cannot operate adequately in silos. No structural change will resolve the inherent ambiguity and overlap of the roles. To label someone chief of staff does not give them the clout and connections they need to be the PM’s principal political adviser. And the popular prescription from public administration academics to create a prime minister’s department will change almost nothing in practice if the principals do not respect and trust each other.
A high functioning Number 10 is inevitably a blend of the PM’s style, the clarity and continuity of a limited number of guiding priorities for their government, and above all the ability of the political and official principals to develop mutual trust, respect, and open communications as they support the prime minister and their government.
It follows that a critical task for the top officials in this mix – the PPS and the Cabinet Secretary - is to earn the trust of the new PM and their political team. Jeremy Heywood achieved this brilliantly in his initial role as PPS to two PM’s, and subsequently when he became Cabinet Secretary for two more prime ministers. His strong personal credibility and authority ensured he could mobilise the senior civil service to align with the Government’s key priorities. It is interesting to note that on becoming PPS to Blair, Heywood was determined that he, not the Chief of Staff, would be the prime minister’s principal gatekeeper and adviser - and the person who ran Number 10. He felt it was critical to the PM’s effectiveness that the civil service should remain in the room for key discussions.
Subject to who he appoints as his cabinet secretary Starmer now looks to be on track to shape a well-functioning Number 10. But careful attention still needs to be paid to how best to set up and staff the Number 10 Policy Unit - especially how to establish a productive relationship between that unit and the mission control teams that are being set up to shape policy and delivery for the Government’s top priorities. And the Number 10 team should read the Institute for Government's excellent report by Jill Rutter and Josh Harris on the different approaches that have been taken to creating the key functions that can support the executive aspects of the PM's role.
Getting a grip 2: setting direction and sticking to it
A sharp focus on a small number of strategic priorities has served the most successful prime ministers well. Without focus they will struggle to resist the overwhelming pressure of: the business of the day, crises, foreign policy and other sidewinds that demand their time and attention. The civil service and their ministers are notorious for letting the urgent trump the important and strategic. The PM’s official and political advisers need to help him hold space for his top priorities. This can be a very tough task. A prime minister’s real priorities are always revealed by what he devotes his time and personal authority to.
The Government’s five Missions mark out their ambition to be that rare beast: a strategic government that sticks with a limited number of priorities throughout its term. The missions can provide powerful signals to the whole system of what is going to matter most, and what will be prioritised for investment and resources. The missions are effectively emergent ‘national priority outcomes’ regardless of the choice of a racier title.
The missions are lightly drawn. The manifesto sketched out a few first steps and actions that signal intent without being close to a strategic, comprehensive or sufficiently bold plan that will transform outcomes. Few of them provide a tangible description of the outcomes sought. But this vagueness can be a virtue if it allows space and time for a rapid and engaging process of policy development.
There are some critical questions to address if the approach to missions is to succeed:
What does success look like (in terms of measurable outcomes as well as a narrative) for each mission?
How will they scope and reprioritise the potential portfolio of policies and projects for each mission?
How will they create the strategic space to identify and commission innovative approaches where needed?
What leverage and decision-making power will mission boards and controllers have?
How will the spending review shift main programme resources to support the missions?
How will accountability be reset to support and recognise cross departmental leadership by ministers and officials that some of the missions demand?
What support will the most senior leaders of the civil service (especially the civil service board) provide to ensure the delivery of the missions?
Early moves by the new government outline some elements of the governance and leadership of work on these missions. They appear to be applying many of the lessons from previous governments efforts to grip policy development and delivery in support of those priorities. There is criticism that boards have not met much, are not being chaired by the Prime Minister and there are few outward signs of progress. But to answer those first three question it is imperative to go through an open, pacey and collaborative strategic policy process. The impulse of the civil service and ministers is too often to fill the space needed for policy development with superficial announcements that constrain essential strategic thinking and prioritisation.
There have been some impressive early appointments to head up the mission controls and the overarching mission control. It is essential that mission control teams are set up in way that applies the lessons from analogous reforms over the last 25 years.
Mission control teams will need to be a hybrid of functions that have taken a different form in the centre over the years. They will need to be part social exclusion unit (SEU) action teams, part delivery unit, part policy unit, part capability review team and part strategy unit. They will need to work closely within the principals in Number 10, with whatever form the Number 10 Policy Unit takes, and co-opt whatever remains of the strategy and implementation functions in the cabinet office.
Above all the way they work must again borrow from the atypically supportive and collaborative playbooks of the most successful central units of the last quarter century: the SEU, the Delivery Unit, the Government Digital Service and the Behavioural Insights Team. Those teams pioneered a different way of working: more open, collaborative and engaging, acting simultaneously as a critical friend and a supportive co-problem solver. This dual approach still goes against the grain of the default approach to policy making in Whitehall which is cautious, inward looking and fragmented. At the heart of these teams’ success was their diverse staffing – a blend of insiders and outsider, analysts, relationship builders, connectors, mavericks and expert facilitators. I will be publishing a long article on my civilservicereformuk.com hub in November 2024 looking in more depth at the lessons from past reforms for outcome focused, cross system government.
On the upside past reforms have greatly improved some of the critical capabilities needed for mission success (open policy making, collaboration, implementation, programme and project management, performance management, service design and digital).
But the barriers that hampered or unravelled past reforms will present once again if there are not bolder interventions by the new leaders of the civil service to address their deep-rooted nature. They will need to confront both the federal nature of government and the enduring ‘central policy makers know best’ mindset. Senior leaders will need to articulate and defend a different approach: unlocking staff and resources and create the right context for missions to succeed.
Getting a grip 3: use the Cabinet Secretary to engage civil service leaders in support of government priorities
An eternal oddity of the Civil Service compared with all other public service bodies and the private sector is the absence of corporate leadership - and the associated support that corporate leadership requires.
Too many senior leaders do not see being part of an active cross civil service leadership cadre as a crucial part of their responsibilities. Instead they are preoccupied by their departmental accountabilities. This reflects the federal hard wiring of the civil service and government. And many permanent secretaries feel little accountability to the Cabinet Secretary. There are scant resources or rewards for senior leaders who step up to bring corporate leadership to the Civil Service. Those that take on this role do so voluntarily and with their personal capital at stake – driven by their personal values and integrity. These outliers are the only leaders who show themselves to be fit for the top job.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Between 1995 and 2010 a tangible senior civil service leadership collective emerged with a shared sense of purpose, initially backed by the then Cabinet Secretary Richard Wilson who had the confidence to delegate leadership of key programmes to his leading perm secs – and lent them his strong support. An evolving group of senior officials (often later becoming permanent secretaries) were consistent players in the main strands of reform through the 90’s and noughties. Their transformative work on talent and diversity through the ‘bringing in and bringing on talent’ programme was the most important output yet remains little known and under-researched.
This phase reached its zenith in Cabinet Secretary O’Donnell’s tenure. He:
created the top 200 senior management group;
was explicit about his expectation that senior civil servants should contribute to the collective leadership of the civil service (a more contentious proposition for some than you might expect);
introduced capability reviews and subsequently the annual engagement survey to supercharge how he held permanent secretaries to account for improving the capability of their departments;
doubled down on the drive for a diverse workforce that looked more like the country it serves, reaching the point where 50% of permanent secretaries were women; and,
established a revamped Civil Service Management Board.
As the 90's and noughties leadership generation left the civil service the collective leadership of the civil service lost their shared sense of purpose, agency and commitment. This seems likely to be one factor in the dwindling carry through of corporate leadership beyond O’Donnell’s tenure. The fragile nature of corporate leadership is emphasised by this loss of momentum. This step backwards was undoubtedly exacerbated by increasing hostility to senior civil servants from 2016 onwards, exemplified by Dominic Cummings gratuitous ‘hard rain’ and the sacking of several permanent secretaries, in some cases for being seen to be too woke by Number 10 idealogues. The all-consuming crises of Brexit and the Covid 19 pandemic, the tragic death of the Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood, and the chaos that characterised the ‘shopping trolley’ premiership of Johnson and Truss’ self-inflicted implosion have left senior civil service confidence and collective leadership at a low ebb in 2024.
Beyond the attitude and commitment of permanent secretaries to taking on a meaningful civil service leadership role there is a need to rethink the odd turn that the top management mechanism of the civil service (the civil service board) has taken.
As currently configured the Civil Service Board (CSB) is chaired by the Civil Service Chief Operating Officer, Cat Little, it is comprised of a cross-section of permanent secretaries from Civil Service departments. Their remit on paper is:
The strategic direction for the operating model of government, system-wide capability and capacity, cross-cutting delivery, efficiency programmes, ensuring value for money.
Implementing the future vision for the Civil Service as a whole and solving long-term organisational and cultural challenges including around people and technology.
Managing systemic risk across the Civil Service.
Ensuring government priorities are responded to effectively.
Promoting coherent cross-government and cross-functional working.
Holding Functions to account for delivery of their priorities.
There is not too much wrong with the terms of reference, which are hugely improved since my time in the cabinet office.
But in practice the CSB has tended to focus on 5 and 6. This is the territory where the cabinet office has created leverage, capacity, and a degree of credibility. Above all it is territory that is uncontested by those permanent secretaries who are primarily focused on their departmental leadership role.
Most strikingly for those used to top teams in the rest of the public and private sector, the CSB is:
not relevant to the shaping of the parameters and execution of the spending review; and,
does not get involved in the approach to and progress of the government’s missions and priorities.
Historically the membership has rotated so that perm secs all get a go and no one feels left out. This is bizarre. No-one should be on the board if they have not earned the right to be there by being an active player in cross civil service leadership and development.
That the current cabinet secretary does not chair it is very strange and reinforces the impression that the typical CSB agenda is like that of a cluster of corporate and professional functions - allowed to operate in so far as they do not unsettle or threaten the strong federal forces of the civil service.
So today the answer to the question ‘who runs the civil service’ is most accurately ‘no one’.
When a new cabinet secretary is appointed they should actively lead this group and remould it into a board that:
takes a view on progress and support needed to deliver the new governments missions by having a standing ‘mission progress’ item where successive mission control heads share progress and share the challenges they face in driving their missions;
has the overall head of missions on the board with respective mission control heads attending when their mission is being considered;
engages with setting of the overall parameters and priorities of spending reviews - this is non negotiable if missions are to have the leverage and influence of main stream resources that they will need to succeed; and,
only appoint permanent secretaries to the board who have a track record of bringing leadership and courage to cross government working.
This board, and the recognition and reward that could follow for those who provide the leadership required will be part of the way that the Cabinet Secretary challenges the enduring departmental siloism which has foiled so many previous efforts at outcome focused, cross system working.
The more senior civil servants see that status, recognition (and rewards they value like promotion and airtime with senior ministers and the PM) come from taking the lead on missions, and making a big contribution to cross cutting government priorities, the more behaviour will start to change.
The vital next step: recruiting the cabinet secretary
The prime minister desperately needs the support of a credible and respected Cabinet Secretary.
The key questions for candidates who would be cabinet secretary should include:
How will you build trust and respect with the PM and his political principals?
How will you reset corporate leadership to ensure the delivery of the new government’s missions?
How will you ensure the civil service mobilises to bring a mix of dogged delivery and innovative policy making behind the five missions of the government?
What is your track record of bringing leadership to the civil service as a whole?
How will you counter the powerful departmentalism of the civil service and government that invariably foils efforts at cross system policy making and delivery?
How will you make sure that policy making is sufficiently open, collaborative and innovative to deliver on the ambitions of our missions? This includes challenging the optimism bias in whitehall about the quality and fitness for purpose of policy making.
He should not judge candidates solely on their fine words in interviews but also seek validation of their track record as senior leaders inside and outside government. Can they tell compelling stories about how they have made a meaningful contribution to collective civil service leadership? How have they supported innovative and collaborative policy making in practice? How have they looked beyond Whitehall to build trust and relationships across the wider policy and delivery landscape? Above all do they inspire trust and respect amongst their staff and have they shown they have the integrity and courage to tell truth to power, and stand up to any abuse of their staff, even if it came from Ministers. One way to validate their story is to look at how staff engagement ratings of their teams changed during their tenure as DG and Permanent Secretary?
Their track record in respect of these questions would probably knock out two thirds of the candidates named in assorted media reports.
It is encouraging that the two key members of the PM’s advisory panel on the appointment of the new cabinet secretary are former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell, and Sharon White with her unusual career history of former permanent secretary, ex CEO of Ofcom and outgoing chairwoman of the John Lewis Partnership. Between them they know what the PM should be looking for. Gus was easily the best head of the civil service for decades. And Sharon brings an unusually empathetic, engaging and inspiring approach to leadership.
The PM should listen very carefully to their advice if he wants to grip government effectively and better weather the inevitable storms ahead.
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