Inside No10: lessons from the last decade
Joe Hill
Policy Director
Policy Director
Yesterday we hosted a panel of special advisers who had worked in 10 Downing Street under four different Prime Ministers:
- Baroness Fall, former Deputy Chief of Staff (administration: David Cameron)
- Katie Perrior, former Director of Communications (administration: Theresa May)
- Lee Cain, former Director of Communications (administration: Boris Johnson)
- Eleanor Shawcross, former Head of the Policy Unit (administration: Rishi Sunak)
It was a great opportunity to reflect on lessons learned from working in Downing Street over the last decade, and ways to improve the institution for those who will work behind the famous black door in the future.
Three things which stood out to me:
- There is no manual. Panellists agreed how surprised they were about how little formal induction there was, particularly for people who hadn’t worked in government before coming to No10. And even for special advisers with experience in government, the step change from working in departments is enormous – panellists talked about how the No10 official machine quickly wraps around an administration to focus attention on the priorities of the system itself, allowing little breathing room for strategic thinking.
- Proximity to power. Running the government of a G7 economy from a couple of cramped terraced houses in SW1 is far from optimal. The architecture of the building doesn’t encourage visibility, transparency and collaboration – forcing political and official teams into different corners. Hierarchy and order need to be imposed by a Prime Minister and the top of the political team through clear leadership and priority-setting. Isolating the Communications team, from the Policy Unit, from the private secretaries, is not a recipe for effective government.
- No10 needs to change in a changing world. In many ways, No10 would be recognisable to Prime Ministers who worked there decades ago, despite profound changes in the rest of the world. The communications machine is optimised for briefing the political lobby, not communicating with the public directly in the social media age. And many of the biggest tectonic shifts in politics are too monolithic for a No10 operation to grip them in Government without effective preparation in Opposition. More civil service support for governments in waiting could be a good first step.