More staff changes at Number 10

by | Feb 11, 2008


Peter Riddell at the Times has the details:

Further far-reaching changes in the running of 10 Downing Street are imminent … The two big appointments so far this year – of Jeremy Heywood as permanent secretary at 10 Downing Street, and of Stephen Carter, from the private sector, as chief of strategy and principal special adviser in charge of political strategy, communications and research, including the policy unit – will now be followed by the addition of more new staff. Mr Heywood is bringing in some civil servants to strengthen the private office and domestic policy side and a number of special political advisers are being recruited. This is to provide a new viewpoint and to beef up the policy unit. In addition, new advisers on developing a media strategy are being hired. This inevitably raises questions about the creation of a prime minister’s department in substance if not in title, an issue that everyone involved wants to dodge.

As significant as these changes is Mr Brown’s acceptance that he misjudged what was necessary to run No 10. There was an unprecedented turnover of staff when Tony Blair left Downing Street last summer because virtually all the special advisers left (apart from two in the policy unit) and there were changes among most of the key Civil Service officials. The result was an initial sharp fall in the number of people working in No 10, which, visitors said, felt much less crowded than in Mr Blair’s heyday. This was partly deliberate as Mr Brown sought publicly to distance himself from both the “sofa government” and presidential aspects of his predecessor’s style. Consequently, he brought over only a handful of officials and advisers from the Treasury to run No 10. Mr Brown now accepts that this was not sufficient to handle an operation as complicated as a prime minister’s office. Like many of his predecessors, he has been struck by the intensity of the media pressure: when one thing goes wrong, so do two or three others.

These concerns led to the reappraisal by the Brown inner circle before and during Christmas that led to the appointments of Mr Heywood and Mr Carter. They now share an office next to the Cabinet Room, which, before last June, was used by Mr Blair as his den or private office. Mr Brown now uses a small room on the other side of the lobby outside the Cabinet Room as his private office, although he meets visitors upstairs in what is now called the Thatcher Room next to the state rooms on the first floor overlooking Horseguards Parade.

The Heywood-Carter team has reviewed the operation and concluded that it has been short of numbers, and weight, in some areas. Mr Heywood is familiar with the No 10 operation from his days as principal private secretary under Mr Blair: his rank and authority are now much greater. Mr Carter, whose main experience has been in the business and media worlds, has had to adjust to the tight and tribal world of the Brown inner circle and to the private language and understandings of politicians and advisers.

It’s reminiscent of the story of the National Security Council under the Bush Administration, which initially slashed staff numbers, only to increase them again under Stephen Hadley when it became clear that the inter-agency co-ordination process was foundering – not least for want of capacity at the centre.

Author

  • Alex Evans is founder of Larger Us, which explores how we can use psychology to reduce political tribalism and polarisation, a senior fellow at New York University, and author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? (Penguin, 2017). He is a former Campaign Director of the 50 million member global citizen’s movement Avaaz, special adviser to two UK Cabinet Ministers, climate expert in the UN Secretary-General’s office, and was Research Director for the Business Commission on Sustainable Development. Alex lives with his wife and two children in Yorkshire.


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