Munira Mirza, a former director of the No.10 Policy Unit, will chair the advisory board of a new think tank that says it will “build a detailed blueprint for government”.
Fix Britain – which describes itself as “a group of senior people with experience in the civil service, business, politics, media, law, the military and the NHS” – says it wants to tackle problems caused by poorly trained ministers and policies that are “thinly sketched out and readily discarded”.
“We draw talent from a tiny, self-selecting pool mediated by political parties that have a lot to answer for. Even when good people emerge, we don’t do nearly enough to prepare them for ministerial roles. In short, we leave the running of the country to amateurs. It can’t go on like this,” a mission statement on the think tank’s website reads.
“Ministerial teams need to be equipped with both subject knowledge and an understanding of the machinery of government. That is the only way they will be in a position to decide which policies can work, how long they will take, the legislation they’ll need, and which personnel and organisations can make it happen… Politicians assume that the civil service will be able to work it all out based on a few sketchy instructions. They can't,” it adds.
HR policies in the civil service will also be an early priority for the think tank, according to the mission statement, which claims that the “HR culture and bureaucracy of Whitehall makes it hard to sack poor performers”.
Overall, the group says it will fix “the key parts of the system that have become most dysfunctional”, citing a reduction in “low-skilled’ migration and an end to illegal migration; driving economic growth through increased investment and productivity; increasing apprenticeships; reducing energy costs; building infrastructure and housing faster and cheaper; and fixing failures in public services and procurement through ambitious reform and technology.
It says it will “target the factors that prevent functionality” in these areas. Along with civil service bureaucracy, these factors include limits on how many bills can be put through parliament in one term; and an “exponential rise in judicial reviews and human rights claims [that] hinders everything from deporting foreign criminals to approving new nuclear power stations”, according to the mission statement.
The think tank is led by chief executive Matthew Patten – formerly political and communications director at the Centre for Social Justice and an ex-Brexit Party MEP – and director of programmes Stephen Webb, a former senior civil servant-turned-head of government reform and home affairs at Policy Exchange.
Webb’s three-decade career in the civil service included stints in the Treasury, the Northern Ireland Office, the Home Office and Cabinet Office. While at Policy Exchange, a right-leaning think tank, he worked on policy proposals to enhance ministerial control of the UK administrative system, reduce immigration and significantly cut the size of the civil service.
Patten has served two terms as a Conservative councillor and worked as chief executive of the social mobility charity Mayor’s Fund for London; youth sports and disability charity The Lord’s Taverners; and global sports and entertainment agency M&C Saatchi Sponsorship.
Mirza, who led the No.10 Policy Unit under Boris Johnson before resigning in February 2022, will lead an advisory board that includes Labour peer Maurice Glasman, who founded Blue Labour; Jon Benjamin, a former ambassador to Mexico and Chile who is chief executive of Free Speech Union International, the anti-"cancel culture" campaigning organisation founded by Toby Young; David Finlay, a former director of the National Audit Office's infrastructure team and non-exec director of the National Infrastructure Commission; and neoconservative political commentator Douglas Murray.
Writing about the organisation in The Times, Mirza said: “Anyone who has served in 10 Downing Street will testify that modern government is complex and demanding. That’s not why things don’t work. The sad truth is that our politicians care more about personal popularity than real achievements and usually end up with neither.
“Not always. During Covid there were glimpses of what mission-driven government could look like. Amidst all the mistakes and horrors, I saw first hand amazing things achieved by talented people pulling together for the common good. However, that’s the exception. Usually, the business of modern politics is to win office for its own sake. Claims of a higher purpose are mostly window dressing.”
She said Fix Britain aims to "do the heavy lifting of preparing a prospectus for government" by not only assessing and selecting policies but by working through the practicalities of implementation. This work will include detailed decision trees; costings; draft legislation; and personnel charts, department by department, she said, with all plans being stress-tested for deliverability and affordability.
The think tank's staff will commission work from leading experts in each field to inform its work, Mirza said.
The group has secured "substantial funding as well as pledges of technical help", she added. It has not made the sources of its funding public.
Fix Britain's advisory board also includes Inaya Folarin Iman, a broadcast journalist, former Brexit Party candidate and founder of The Equiano Project, a forum to promote freedom of speech and open dialogue on the subjects of race, identity and culture; Liam Halligan, an economist and journalist who was economics and business editor at GB News until last year; and political adviser and pollster James Johnson, who was senior research and strategy adviser to the prime minister from 2016 to 2019.
The mission statement says Fix Britain is "avowedly non-party".
"We have started recruiting successful people with expertise from outside government: in commerce; in the tech sector; in the military. They will work in conjunction with those of us who have inside experience of the machinery of the civil service, Parliament and the interplay of domestic and international law. As we move forward, we believe that others with expertise to share will join us," it says.