Over the summer Nick Clegg shuffled round his special advisers having had the benefit of several months experience seeing how government works from the inside. Now it’s the civil service side of his team which is being adapted:
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy prime minister, has moved to boost his firepower inside Whitehall by appointing Chris Wormald, the head of the economic and domestic affairs secretariat in the Cabinet Office, as the head of his office.
He is also considering expanding the deputy prime minister’s office by appointing what would, in effect, become his mini-policy unit inside the Cabinet Office. (The Guardian)
The underlying problem is not simply that there are Liberal Democrat ministers who need support in their own immediate ministerial roles, as for those they get the same sort of support as Conservative ministers or previously Labour ministers. However, the nature of coalition means that in addition many of them have to keep an eye on policy across a much wider chunk of central government, and support for that wider work has been extremely stretched.
Whilst it’s sensible to address this change in ministerial needs as a result of coalition, for the Liberal Democrats it isn’t policy support that should really be the top issue – it’s the day to day tactical political communications (as I blogged about yesterday). That said, better policy support won’t do any harm and there is plenty of discussion within the party and the government about how to improve communications.
After my post yesterday a friend texted me to say ‘excellent post, but what do we do about it?’. That’s a very fair question to ask, particularly as I’ve been critical often enough in the past of people who say “that’s awful!” but don’t offer solutions. So over the weekend I’ll round off what will then be a trilogy of posts with my own suggestions. In the meantime, do post up any good ideas you have in the comments below.
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9 Comments
The policies of this government are so radical that I would say that good advice on policy is absolutely crucial. If the policies of this government are not well thought through, the consequences could be disastrous. We don’t want a calamity like the poll tax again.
I have no idea who Chris Wormald is and whether he will be any good. A google search leaves me none the wiser.
“Over the summer Nick Clegg shuffled round his special advisers … He is also considering expanding the deputy prime minister’s office by appointing what would, in effect, become his mini-policy unit inside the Cabinet Office.”
The other day you were arguing for fewer ministers. The post of Deputy Prime Minister is not an official position. I don’t see why Nick Clegg needs to create teams of personal/special advisors. He should be using the existing advisors across the government departments as and when needed. For LibDem policy, he should be making use of advisors at party HQ – not building his own personal empire.
RichardSM
Clegg is also a minister for constitutional affairs.
Clegg is more than deputy Prime Minister. John Prescott wasn’t consulted about pretty much the whole range of government policy. Nick Clegg has to be, or Cameron couldn’t be sure of getting the policy through. Though the junior partner, he is, in effect, joint Prime Minister.
So, does he need a mini-policy unit? Absolutely! If not, a well-briefed Cameron will run rings round him.
That would be necessary in any coalition government. When there is a drastic programme of expenditure cuts, and the government is introducing a staggering range of new policy changes, Geoffrey Payne is right. It is vital he gets this right.
As to whether this will help with day to day tactical political communications. I would expect it to. Surely, if Clegg has had too little civil service support, his special advisers will have been providing some of that support. Once that support is available from the civil service, it frees them up to work on political communications.
@david thorpe; @George Kendall
As I said, “He should be using the existing advisors across the government departments as and when needed. … not building his own personal empire.”
@RichardSM “he should be making use of advisors at party HQ – not building his own personal empire.”
But as a result of us now being in government and losing Short Money, we have had to cut the number of policy advisors we now have in party HQ, simply because the expectation is that in government you use SPADs and civil servants more. You can’t have it both ways.
As David Thorpe says though, he is a minister in his own right and therefore needs some of his own support, and whilst he could also utilise the other advisors across government, their primary responsibility is to their own minister. Anyone who’s had two separate line managers could tell you that being at the beck and call of two different people with different work demands never works.
Being in coalition makes a lot of this different from usual, and we are still only working out what needs to change from one-party government. I think for this coalition to work properly Nick needs his own team to ensure he is as well briefed and is as professional as David Cameron is so it is a partnership of equals. I know we can have the argument that they aren’t equals as the Conservatives got far more votes than the Lib Dems, but in terms of knowing what’s happening in government we have to be on a level playing field.
“he should be making use of existing advisors across the government departments”
As I read it, he’s rearranging people to give him direct support, rather than hiring new people. How is it different if he has (say) 5 people working to advise him, as compared to having (say) 20 people each spending some of their time advising him?
Also, civil servants based in departments advocate for their department and may lack an understanding of knock ons between a spending decision relevant to one department and its impact elsewhere, making it vital to have people without departmental affiliation advising him.
@Anders Hanson
“Anyone who’s had two separate line managers…” He shouldn’t be trying to be a separate line manager. He is deputy Prime Minister. Building his own little power-base isn’t the way. If this is illustrative of coalition thinking then they will run into problems very quickly. I suspect this has more to do with Clegg’s ego than any practical considerations. It’s a coalition. He needs to get that into his head. Claiming we need smaller government, fewer MPs, smaller ministries, fewer quangos and asking people to make personal sacrifices whilst at the same creating another series of policy units and advisory teams for his own convenience, will diminish coalition credibility. The days of big government are over.
Here’s what Clegg and Cameron said in the coalition agremment:
“For years, politicians could argue that because they held all the information, they needed more power.
But today, technological innovation has – with astonishing speed – developed the opportunity to spread information and decentralise power in a way we have never seen before.”
Clegg should be practising what he preaches. Instead he seems to want to gather his own information pool to give him more power.
Presumably this Chris Wormald?
http://network.civilservicelive.com/pg/pages/view/259288/