BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
Page 15
The PMSU was formed from a merger of existing strategy units, including the PIU and the PMFSU. It had three roles: strategic reviews and policy
advice on the Prime Minister’s domestic policy priorities; helping
departments develop effective strategies and policies; and identifying and
12 Andrew Taylor, ‘Hollowing out or Filling in? Taskforces and the Management of Crosscutting Issues in British Government’, British Journal of Politics and International
Relations, 2, 2000: 46–71.
13 Peter Hennessy, ‘The Blair Style of Government’, Government and Opposition, 33, 1998: 15.
. . .
disseminating thinking on emerging issues and challenges. It worked in
project teams organised around five clusters: public service reform, home
affairs, economy and infrastructure, welfare reform, and social justice and
communities. It increasingly took on work formerly carried out by one of
the policy-specific, cross-cutting units, yet it always remained relatively
small. At its peak, there were no more than ninety people working in the
Unit and by mid-May 2005 it contained some fifty-five people. The workforce was drawn from the civil service, the private or voluntary sectors,
and the wider public sector.
It is difficult to assess the impact of the PMSU. It published some
ninety reports between May 1999 and March 2007 but it also conducted
many confidential projects. Despite the claim that its reports were not
official statements of government policy, they often framed the public
policy debate. Its work had direct effects on government policy and the
delivery of services: for example, the conclusions of the Energy Review.14
By the end, it had a central and growing role. It was responsible for developing reform of the public services. It was also heavily involved in the six
policy reviews the Prime Minister launched in October 2006. Its role was
to develop big policy for the ‘whole’ of government, not just on a particular issue.15 It also enjoyed broad support. It received a positive report
from the House of Commons Public Administration Committee and the
Conservative Party’s Democracy Task Force.16 By the prevailing standards for such units, its position was, and remains, secure. However, it is
hard to judge its effectiveness because it was not the only strategic unit in
the core executive undertaking such work. The Treasury always played an
important role (see below).
Supporting the cabinet
The Cabinet Office under Blair had the usual secretariats: economic and
domestic, European, defence and overseas, and intelligence. There has
been a tendency to focus on the glamorous strategy units and ignore the
long-standing, even dull, work of the Cabinet Office. That is a mistake.
Contrary to assertions about the ‘death of cabinet’, the Cabinet Office
14 Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit, The Energy Review (London: Cabinet Office, 2002).
15 For information on the Prime Minister’s Policy Reviews see: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/
policy_review/index.asp.
16 Public Administration Select Committee, Governing the Future, 2006–07, HC 123-I
(London: TSO, 2007); and Conservative Party Democracy Task Force, An End to Sofa
Government (London: Conservative Party, 2007).
Secretariat continued to perform its traditional coordinating role. Of
course, it was subject to the same pressures for change. Some of these
changes were to meet the policy commitments of the Blair government.
For example, a Constitution Secretariat was created immediately after
the general election in May 1997 to coordinate the government’s wideranging programme of constitutional reform, notably the work on devolution, freedom of information, House of Lords reform and human
rights. Other changes were less significant, examples of administrative
evolution, such as the change in name of the Ceremonial Branch to the
Ceremonial Secretariat in 2001.
The most notable reforms were in security, intelligence and emergency-related matters. Two developments are noteworthy. First, a new
post of Intelligence and Security Coordinator was created in June 2002.
The Coordinator became the Prime Minister’s principal adviser on security, intelligence and emergency-related matters, assuming responsibility
for functions previously discharged by the Cabinet Secretary. He was
responsible for day-to-day oversight of the Intelligence and Security
Secretariat, providing the Prime Minister and other senior ministers
with timely, accurate and objectively assessed intelligence from across
government and the intelligence agencies. In November 2005, the newly
appointed Permanent Secretary, Richard Mottram, also became Chair of
the Joint Intelligence Committee and the title of the post was changed to
Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience.
Second, the new permanent secretary was also responsible for overseeing the work of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat which was created in
July 2001 when the Cabinet Office merged its existing emergency planning units with those from the Home Office. Its main role was to prepare
for and respond to crises and major emergencies. It worked on incidents
such as avian influenza as well as the London bombings of July 2005. In
short, there was a major expansion of the Cabinet Office’s work in both
intelligence and security, and emergency planning. The new post of
Permanent Secretary, Intelligence, Security and Resilience, was created as
a link between these two areas of work.17
17 At the end of March 2007, the Prime Minister announced the creation of a new Ministry
of Justice and a strengthening of the Home Office’s role in security and counter-terrorism.
Most of the security and intelligence functions of the Permanent Secretary for
Intelligence, Security and Resilience will remain intact and the ‘Cabinet Office will retain
its role [in] supporting the Prime Minister on national security and counter-terrorism’.
But in the ever-changing world of strengthening central capability, it is wisest to conclude
that observers should ‘watch this space’. See www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/publications/
reports/government_changes/doc/machinery_govt.doc.
. . .
It is hard to escape the conclusion that here was a government intent
on centralising policymaking. The aim of the Cabinet Office, as a Prime
Minister’s department in all but name, was to allow Blair to remain on
top, if not in detailed touch. However, it was still abundantly clear that
the Prime Minister ‘never [really] succeeded in finding a structure that
suited him’.18
The management story
As Richard Wilson observed: ‘The reality is that the Civil Service
has long been under pressure from politicians to reform, beginning with Harold Wilson, who set up the Fulton Committee 40 years
ago’.19 Improving public sector management was always central to these
reforms. Under Blair, as under previous governments, the spate of
initiatives continued unabated. As Antony Part, former Permanent
Secretary at the Department of Industry testily asse
rted: ‘Then, as now,
the administrative class spent most of their time initiating or implementing changes. It was – and is – their characteristic function, a point
that has been overlooked by a number of prominent people who ought
to know better.’20 Managing change was to remain a characteristic function of the administrative class just as the search for management
change was to remain a preoccupation of the political class. We now tell
the story of Blair’s search for a civil service with better management
skills.21
The reform process began with the Modernising Government White
Paper, with joined-up government as its flagship innovation. This agenda
mutated into the ‘delivery agenda’ by the general election victory of June
2001. The government presented these shifts as a naturally evolving
process. In contrast, others protest that: ‘It’s a succession of knee jerks . . .
They are not standing back and defining what they mean. Phrases like
18 Seldon, Blair, p. 694.
19 Richard Wilson at: www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xmlϭ/opinion/2007/01/16/
do1601.xm.
20 Antony Part, The Making of a Mandarin (London: Deutsch, 1990), p. 20.
21 On the reforms of the Blair government, see Tony Bovaird and Ken Russell, ‘Civil
Service Reform in the UK, 1999–2005: Revolutionary Failure or Evolutionary
Success?’, Public Administration, 85, 2007: 301–28; Paul Fawcett, Power in UK Central
Government – Centralization and Coordination under the Blair Government
(Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 forthcoming); and David Richards, New
Labour and the Civil Service: Reconstituting the Westminster Model (Houndmills:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
“joined-up government”, and the “Third Way” don’t mean anything.’22
The result was a frustrated civil service, seeking a clear sense of direction
amid the plethora of detailed changes.
The Modernising Government agenda was diffuse, although the theme
given the greatest prominence was joined-up government.23 The White
Paper sought to develop a framework that government could use to coordinate its activity. Institutional fragmentation and the attendant problems of coordination had already been noted by Robin Butler, Blair’s first
Head of the Home Civil Service, on his retirement:
I do worry that the management reforms of the last decade may have
focused our energies very much on particular objectives, particular targets,
performance indicators in return for resources and delegations. And that
we have in some measure taken our eye off what we used to be good at –
and still can do – which is working more corporately across the boundaries. And it may be, and I’d regret it, that the personnel reforms that we
have introduced have also given people a sense that they work more for
Departments rather than for the wider Civil Service.24
So, a new language gained currency and we talked about joined-up
government, holistic governance and partnerships.25 It was but a phase.
As the Public Administration Committee of the House of Commons
commented:
The ‘Modernising Government’ programme as a whole is complex and has
multiple elements. It is not always clear where the really key priorities are,
with the resulting danger that civil servants will endeavour to work
methodically on all of them at once. This is a great virtue; but it is also a
considerable disability in terms of putting first things first. In our view
the immense checklists contained within the ‘Modernising Government’
22 See Office of Public Services Reform, Putting People at the Heart Of Public Services
(London: Cabinet Office, 2005), p. 6; and Cabinet Office official cited in Hennessy, The
Blair Revolution in Government (University of Leeds: Institute for Politics and
International Studies, 2000), p. 9.
23 See Cabinet Office, Modernising Government, Cm. 4310 (London: TSO, 1999); and
Cabinet Office and Performance and Innovation Unit, Wiring It Up (London: Cabinet
Office, 2000).
24 Robin Butler at: www.open.gov.uk/co/scsg/conference/rw_xscript.htm.
25 For a critical review of joined-up governance see Vernon Bogdanor (ed.), Joined-Up
Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); Christopher Pollitt, ‘Joined-up
Government: A Survey’, Political Studies Review, 1, 2003: 34–49; and David Richards and
Martin J. Smith, ‘The “Hybrid State”: New Labour’s Response to the Challenge of
Governance’, in S. Ludlam and M. J. Smith (eds.), Governing as New Labour (London:
Palgrave, 2003).
. . .
programme need to be converted into a much stronger definition of what
the key priorities for action are, with clear responsibilities assigned for
delivering them.26
Following Blair’s second election victory, there was a clear shift in direction. The new focus was on ‘delivery’. It was a policy shift that led to further
institutional reform. Two new units were created in the Cabinet Office –
the Office for Public Service Reform (OPSR) and the Prime Minister’s
Delivery Unit (PMDU), which we discuss below. The OPSR developed and
promulgated the ‘philosophy’ of the delivery agenda. It also advised the
Prime Minister on the ways of implementing reform in the public services
and the civil service. It covered all public services including local government. It was at the heart of the delivery agenda. Nevertheless, the lack of a
White Paper underpinning the delivery agenda means that its development
has to be tracked through a series of policy papers, speeches and statements.27 So the principles of the delivery agenda were not always clear,
mainly because they evolved over time. Even at the start, the Cabinet Office
website was less than specific in announcing the end of the Modernising
Government programme and the arrival of the delivery agenda:
Thus delivery of better, modern public service is the Government’s key priority for its second term. This is not easy; one commentator has said,
‘There is no drama in delivery . . . only a long, grinding haul punctuated by
public frustration with the pace of change.’ Failure will not be tolerated,
nor will mediocrity.28
The clearest statements of the principles underpinning the early phase
of the delivery agenda can be found in two separate documents. The first
document, Reforming our Public Services: Principles into Practice, was
published by the OPSR in March 2002. It outlined the ‘Prime Minister’s
four principles of public sector reform’: national standards to ensure that
people have the right to high-quality services wherever they live; devolution to give local leaders the means to deliver these standards to local
people; more flexibility in service provision to meet people’s rising expectations; and greater customer choice.29 The second document, Putting
26 House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Making Government Work:
The Emerging Issues, 2000–01, HC 94 (London: TSO, 2001), para. 42.
27 See, for example, Office of Public Services Reform , Reforming our Public Services –
Principles into Practice (London: Cabinet Office,
2002).
28 Cabinet Office, ‘The Second Phase of Public Sector Reform: The Move to Delivery’, at:
http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/eeg/secondphase.htm.
29 Office of Public Services Reform , Reforming our Public Services, p. 3.
People at the Heart of Public Services, contained much of the same
rhetoric.30 In July 2004, each of the main delivery departments also published their own five-year strategies, which sought to identify how the
Prime Minister’s principles of public sector reform could be incorporated
into the front-line delivery of services. Alas, the reform was beset with the
usual problems. As Jill Rutter, head of the Strategy and Sustainability
Directorate at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
commented, one of the main shortcomings of the five-year strategies was
the persistent problem of a ‘lack of integration’.31
The general principles informing the delivery agenda were also outlined by Michael Barber, the Prime Minister’s former Chief Adviser on
Delivery in his comments about education:
Between 2001 and 2005 what Blair increasingly hankered after was a way
of improving the education system that didn’t need to be constantly driven
by government. He wanted to develop self-sustaining, self-improving
systems, and that led him to look into how to change not just the standards
and the quality of teaching, but the structures and incentives. Essentially
it’s about creating different forms of a quasi-market in public services,
exploiting the power of choice, competition, transparency and incentives,
and that’s really where the education debate is going now . . . At the political level Blair really understands this challenge, but it is highly controversial – within the Labour Party and nationally.32
And in February 2004, the Prime Minister outlined what delivery meant
for him:
The principal challenge is to shift focus from policy advice to delivery.
Delivery means outcomes. It means project management. It means
adapting to new situations and altering rules and practice accordingly. It
means working not in traditional departmental silos. It means working
naturally with partners outside of Government. It’s not that many individual civil servants aren’t capable of this. It is that doing it requires a