As safer streets director general in the Home Office, Richard Clarke is the senior responsible officer for the ambitious street safety agenda. He tells CSW what it felt like to take on the role, how the mission is working, and what he does to switch off
How did you get the job?
I was approached by Matthew Rycroft, the Home Office permanent secretary and an old boss of mine at the international development department, to see if I would be prepared to be senior responsible officer for the safer streets mission. I’d worked in the Home Office for 13 years earlier in my career, including on police reform, and so was delighted to accept. In January, my role expanded to take on the full range of responsibilities for the Public Safety Group at the Home Office.
This is a new way of working and a really ambitious mission. What was the split between “exciting” and “daunting” when you first took on the role?
Great question. Like all my SRO colleagues, I’m sure, it was a real mix. Exciting to be working on something so important to people up and down the country and so fundamental to the new government’s plans, but also daunting to be working on such ambitious targets. With our objective to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, for example, we’re attempting something that we think has never been achieved anywhere else in the world.
How has your background and previous roles informed the way you’re approaching this job?
From my time working on policing policy and on secondment, I’ve been able to draw on my network of contacts – Lynne Owens, the deputy commissioner at the Met Police, started at Scotland Yard on the same day as me, for example. And I’ve also drawn a lot on my two years running a major IT project – Digital Services at the Border – to ensure we are taking a properly programmatic approach to delivery and are on track. And major programmes also teach you a lot about personal resilience, how to switch off at the end of the day, which I’ve found invaluable in this role.
What do you see as the key elements of a mission-based approach? And how do you see those elements helping to tackle this longstanding challenge in a new way?
For me, there are three things that really characterise a mission-based approach: working across government departments in a horizontal way (tackling knife crime will be about prevention in schools and working with tech companies as much as it’s about the police); trying things locally in partnership with agencies and the third sector and scaling up fast (which we’re really championing through our work to increase resources in neighbourhood policing teams); and treating this as a long term objective, sticking with it when things feel tough.
What were your first priorities when you started the job? And what are your key focuses now as the mission is getting more established?
Like most people early in a new role, I was very focused on building a team fast – I’m grateful to colleagues from across government, and especially the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, who answered the call – and getting to know my delivery partners. Now we’re more established, it’s about ensuring we have a really robust delivery plan, against which we can assess progress, and are holding on to that spirit of early radicalism so that we don’t get sidetracked by bureaucracy.
"Now we’re more established, it’s about ensuring we have a really robust delivery plan and are holding on to that spirit of early radicalism"
Who are the key organisations in your mission plan? And who’s on the mission board?
We’re working in very close partnership with the Ministry of Justice and the law officers, as you’d expect, along with the Department for Education on prevention, the health and social care department on early intervention (especially on VAWG) and the communities department. But these issues are so broad that we’ve had great inputs from the Department for Transport, the Department for Work and Pensions – and beyond. The mission board is mainly government departments, but recent meetings have included the police, the domestic abuse commissioner Nicole Jacobs and the director of public prosecutions.
Can you give us an overview of how you’re monitoring progress? What’s the governance in terms of stocktakes, reporting, etc?
I chair regular stocktakes with lead officials and we have a home secretary-chaired board every month. Every eight weeks, the prime minister holds each mission to account for whether we’re making progress. It’s great to have that intense interest and support.
How are you working with devolved and local governments?
The home secretary recently chaired a meeting with representatives of all the devolved governments and my team has been working with colleagues at official level. Most of the mission is restricted to England and Wales but that doesn’t stop us working closely on shared objectives, especially on domestic abuse, for example, with Scottish and Northern Irish colleagues. And I’m off to Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh in the coming weeks to further the dialogue.
And how are you working with the centre on this? What’s your interaction with the Mission Delivery Unit?
The Mission Delivery Unit has been a really important innovation, working with us from day one. They can challenge, corral and encourage, drawing on experience from what other missions are finding tough. And they’re focused on the issues – such as mental health – that cut across multiple missions. One of the things I really value is the focus they bring to both short-term delivery and longer-term problem solving. It feels like a true partnership.
Do you meet with/get support from other mission leads?
I do – it’s great to be able to compare notes, learn from each other’s experiences and pool our thinking. One of my new directors recently spent a day with the opportunity mission team, for example, to get a sense of how they work.
"It’s really welcome that the Treasury are approaching the forthcoming Spending Review through a mission lens"
As a former Treasury man, how important do you think getting funding mechanisms and incentives right will be for the success of missions?
I think it’s absolutely central. It’s been striking in the last few months that it can be in the minutiae of how local grant arrangements work as much as in big, central government announcements that we can make progress. It’s really welcome that the Treasury are approaching the forthcoming Spending Review through a mission lens.
How are you supporting your team – and yourself – to manage the impacts of working on what can be a really distressing area?
I’m fortunate to have experienced team members who, in many cases, have worked on sometimes distressing areas of policy for a while. There is a satisfaction that comes from knowing you’re making a real difference to people’s lives, and can share experience with newer team members. We talk, compare notes, make sure people know where to go to get help, take breaks when needed and look out for each other.
And on that note, how do you unwind? Do you ever watch police dramas or do you blanch at how unrealistic they are?
I find getting outside really helps, so as the weather improves, I’ll be out walking in the countryside near my house. I love a good police drama, although I have been known to shout at the TV when a bit of process is wildly out of sync with reality!
Career highlights
Richard Clarke began his career at the Treasury and has also spent time in the Cabinet Office, where he was part of the team who founded the Office for Civil Society.
The majority of his career so far has been spent at the Home Office, in roles such as international director, programme director for the Digital Services at the Border Programme, the director responsible for the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy and head of the Home Office Police Reform Unit
He also spent two years on secondment to the Metropolitan Police Service as its director of strategy and improvement.
In 2018, he joined the Department for International Development as director general for policy, research and humanitarian, before taking another secondment on national security community, focusing on organisational delivery. He returned to the Home Office in 2024.