One thing I find counterintuitive and disappointing is that the centre of government – whether the cabinet secretary or the Cabinet Office – can only urge and exhort government departments to do things. A huge amount of time is spent trying to persuade different arms of government to do what the heart of government deems necessary.
We all got terribly excited about mission-led government – and yet, I can’t think of the last time I heard a minister talk about it. Like a late spring frost, it just vanished.
I’m not advocating for executive power. But to drive forward these changes, you need somebody at the centre who can say: “I’ve listened to the competing voices and arguments. This is the decision. This is the road that we’re going to go down. Jolly well get on and do it.”
It’s not a new problem. In 1838, the Duke of Wellington – a military man – was asked how he had found his first cabinet meeting as prime minister. He said, “Well, it was all a bit strange. They came in, sat down, I gave them their orders, and then they wanted to sit around and discuss them.”
The Office of the Prime Minister has rattled around the corridors of Whitehall as an idea for a good number of years. I must confess I was never terribly convinced that the country would benefit from it – but now I am totally convinced. The government is trying to run a 21st-century country and economy, with all of the attendant national and international problems, without the very heart of government – the prime minister – having a department of his or her own. There are officials and advisers in No.10, and the Cabinet Office is technically an adjunct to No.10 – but the boundaries are quite fuzzy. If people are serious about setting strategies and delivering on them, I cannot see how an OPM could do anything other than help.
We do now have a chief secretary to the prime minister – but nobody knows what the bloody hell that means. I think the intention was that when Darren Jones spoke, it was deemed to be as if the prime minister was speaking. I don’t think that’s happened and a lot of people are still saying, “I want to hear it directly from the prime minister.” Then too much of the prime minister’s time and bandwidth is taken up with reassuring cabinet minister X or minister of state Y that this is what they want to happen. Over the time of a parliament, how much prime ministerial time is wasted effectively rubber stamping something which shouldn’t have needed a rubber stamp? I think we’re running into months.
What might an Office of the Prime Minister look like? I think it probably means a slimmed-down Cabinet Office. It probably means a bit of a shake around in terms of how the civil service is organised and who is recruited into the OPM. It would have to have political direction and senior civil servant direction. The cabinet secretary would have to play a vital part in that to convene the thematic discussions, capture the decisions, distil the arguments and come to a conclusion, and then track through the delivery and implementation. The cab sec should also look at whether the success or change that was hoped for is on the right track, and have the ability to tweak or retune it.
I think the basic stumbling block to an OPM is people thinking it would be hubristic or a constitutional outrage. And I think prime ministers get scared off the idea because they think it’s empire building. It’s not, it’s delivery-improving.
You’d probably have to get the energised buy-in of permanent secretaries and secretaries of state, or they might go, “Oh gosh, does this in any way diminish our department?” And you might have officials arguing against it, saying, “This is not within our constitutional settlement. This won’t lead to rapidity of decision-making.”
Well, when we get some rapid decision-making, please prod me awake and let me know, because it’s passed me by for the last 20 years.
The centre fights the battle for delivery of change in government with an eye patch, an iron boot and one arm tied behind its back in the absence of an OPM. Yes, it needs to be resourced and staffed properly. You need to have the right dynamic and the right foundational explanation as to what is being done and what it’s going to do. But I just don’t think we can carry on without it.
Simon Hoare MP is chair of PACAC. His comments, as told to CSW, have been edited for length and clarity