Boris Johnson now leads an interim administration. Within a fortnight, we will have a new occupant of No. 10. What will Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss find waiting for them in Downing Street? And what might the machinery of government mean for their ability to deliver on their campaign promises?
The first thing that will strike the new Prime Minister is Johnson’s internal reforms. The creation of an ‘Office of the Prime Minister’ is potentially the most significant, although it was announced late in Johnson’s premiership and it remains to be seen how seriously it has been taken. On arrival, the new Prime Minister may therefore be equally entitled to feel that No. 10 has been either slimmed-down or beefed-up. On one hand, there are reports that the new Downing Street Permanent Secretary the Samantha Jones will encourage much of the building’s staff to move into the Cabinet Office in an attempt to rationalise the building’s ever-expanding operation. But on the other hand, Jones’s appointment is connected to the creation of a Department for the Prime Minister’s Office, an expansionary move.
Sue Gray’s report found that No. 10 had grown such that ‘it is now more akin to a small government department’ and that structures ‘have not evolved sufficiently to meet the demands of this expansion’. The job title of Downing Street permanent secretary is not entirely new in itself, but could be significant if it is meant to address the resulting ‘blurred lines of accountability’ referred to in the report. A permanent secretary for No. 10, like those found in other departments, could differ from the cabinet secretary in focusing on the activities of No. 10 alone, and more explicitly serving the Prime Minister rather than the cabinet and the government as a whole.
While accountability within No. 10 may be cleared up, there is less clarity as to who would represent Downing Street externally. Much of constitutional government is exercised by the ‘golden triangle’, a triad of civil servants referred to by Lord Hennessy as the ‘continuity men and women of the entire system’: the cabinet secretary and the principal private secretaries to the Queen and the Prime Minister. These three connect their essential components of the constitution to ensure the smooth operation of government. Where does the new fourth role fit?
Much will depend on the approach taken by the new Prime Minister. The idea of such an office is not new. Successive prime ministers have repeatedly fiddled with the machinery of government, often after they pulled the levers of power and felt that nothing happened. Historians and academics have long debated whether a ‘Prime Minister’s Department’ already exists, albeit unofficially. Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher both considered the establishment of a formal ‘PMD’, although neither implemented the idea, generally felt to symbolise a power grab on the part of the Prime Minister. The Cabinet Office, long an ill-defined adjunct to the Downing Street buildings, has been a repository for various prime ministerial projects. But past advisers, such as Harold Wilson’s economic adviser Thomas Balogh, and units such as Edward Heath’s Central Policy Review Staff, have suffered from a lack of influence when located next door in the Cabinet Office and away from the Prime Minister. An explicit Prime Minister’s Department could strengthen the premiership.
Apart from a new perm sec, there has been little else concrete on a Prime Minister’s Department so far. That will be up to the new PM. A more formalised or even expanded structure could improve accountability, but may reduce flexibility. It could increase bureaucracy and slow down government, or strengthen the Prime Minister’s ability to drive their agenda from the centre. Structures are important, but personalities and priorities matter too.
Getting stuff done is harder than it looks. Tony Blair’s former head of the Delivery Unit Sir Michael Barber was re-hired in January 2021 to conduct a ‘delivery review’ across Whitehall in a sign that ministers have been frustrated at how slow-moving government has been. Under Blair, Barber had the Prime Minister’s confidence and backing, enabling the unit to push ahead with ensuring key targets were delivered, even when the PM was distracted by crises. But this does not seem to have materialised under Johnson. A Prime Minister’s Department may help clear up who’s in charge of whom within No. 10, but it takes laser-like focus to see real change outside of No. 10 across the nation.
Johnson had a number of staffing and machinery revamps while in No. 10. Yet Herbert Asquith’s old claim that ‘the office of prime minister is what the holder chooses and is able to make of it’ remains just as true a century on. Appointments, advisers and machinery matter to a Prime Minister. But in a role so fixated on one individual, personality matters above all else.
Dr Jack Brown is lecturer in London studies at King's College London