David Willetts is President of the Resolution Foundation and a member of the House of Lords.
I’ve had the privilege of working during my career in central institutions of the British Government – No 10, the Cabinet Office, the Whips Office and the Treasury. I’ve seen deep dysfunction and also effective teamwork.
The key to success is the way of working set by the PM himself or herself.
There is no right way to do it. Different Prime Ministers have their own ways of discharging their heavy responsibilities. It is rather like different actors with a wide range of interpretations of a great Shakespearean role.
It does not look as if Keir Starmer has yet established his interpretation of the role. The departure of Sue Gray and the lessons he will have learned from his experience of the past 100 days is his opportunity to develop his way of working and then use his new team of key advisers to communicate it across Whitehall.
Some top-level ministers like big meetings so they can communicate with as many colleagues and staff what they are trying to do. Others prefer very small meetings where they can confer with a few really trusted advisers.
Some work from written submissions. (One reason why Mrs T’s relationship with Nigel Lawson broke down was that he thought they had done a deal at their face-to-face meetings but she still waited for the written submission with the real detail.)
Tony Blair famously preferred a chat on the sofa. For others a meeting is only real if it is round the Cabinet table.
Some regard PMQs as a tiresome chore to be got through with the minimum damage. Mrs T by contrast used PMQs – twice a week in her day – to get information about what was going on across Government and push back when she thought a department’s position was wrong.
It did sometimes feel as if she was the Leader of Opposition but based in No 10.
Some Prime Ministers get very presidential with an under-current in No 10 of dismissing clunky departments for failing to get with the programme. Others really do delegate to Cabinet colleagues trusting them to get on with the job of running big departments.
It seems that Keir Starmer may be a delegator which would be admirable.
But that then needs to be practised by his staff. The real test is when things go wrong. If No 10 immediately blames the department and its minister, then that will be the end of ambitions for delegation. But sticking to it really does earn a PM the loyalty of ministerial colleagues in return.
Many PMs will delegate in some areas but not in others.
When you get No 10’s attention the departmental minister may never quite know if this is because you are delivering one of the PM’s political priorities or you are causing such concern you are being brought into special measures. But No 10 can’t conduct the whole business of Government and it needs to communicate the areas where it expects close consultation and where you have a much wider license to operate.
There are some functions which do have to be discharged at the Centre and where everyone suffers if it is weak.
A Government needs a well-informed and tightly managed grid of the announcements and activities it is focussing on. Behind that grid it needs a communication strategy which includes a clear line to take on any issue.
It is not yet obvious that this Labour Government has got either of these key functions properly sorted out. They do appear to have been Sue Gray’s responsibility and in that case it is not surprising that the PM has decided he needs a change. One problem may have been centralisation in one person when it can’t all be done by one person. They are distinct roles each requiring a coherent team with someone specifically in charge.
Everyone at No 10 and indeed at the top of every department should know whose key responsibility is running the grid at No 10 and who is the custodian of the line to take.
There have been many heads of communications at No 10. I still think of Bernard Ingham as the master. He had real authority including sometimes over Mrs T. Writing speeches for her was always incredibly hard work and took hours as the message was tested to destruction.
One evening we had got completely stuck as she rejected draft after draft. Then Bernard put his head round the door and said “PM the Sunday lobby have been asking what you are going to say in your speech. So, I thought it might be helpful if I reported what I told them.” He did and our problem was solved. Mrs T was relieved. We had to write the speech he had briefed out.
The Policy Unit at its best it helps the PM link the day-to-day decisions to their strategic objectives. There is no point just whingeing about departments – it might be that somehow No 10 is not communicating properly what it is trying to achieve. And a lot of policy is trade-offs between different admirable objectives. Sometimes the problem is that No 10 has not spotted the tension and lashes out rather than listens. The Policy Unit can be really constructive here.
The best chiefs of staff – Ed Llewellyn for David Cameron and Jonathan Powell for Tony Blair – got all this. And they could get the whole system to work because they were both in a sense political but they understood and respected Whitehall and the policy-making process. They were not the same as a political secretary. That political secretary has the key responsibilities of party links both with the Whips office and the party organisation. The Chief of Staff has to understand the Party but also respect Whitehall and the key role of the private secretaries in ensuring the despatch of business.
Get all this right – and David Cameron for example did – and a Prime Minister can get stuff done. If you can’t then, however big your Parliamentary majority, it will be hard to use your power effectively.