Truss Whitehall shake-up is an accident waiting to happen

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The UK continues to be in a period of mourning following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. While I imagine I will have more to say about that in future briefings, today’s note is on the structure of Liz Truss’s government.

Inside Politics is edited by Georgina Quach. Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenkb and please send gossip, thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Oh, what became of the likely Spads?

Last week, I wrote about some of the potential benefits of Liz Truss’s slimmed-down Downing Street.

There are a lot of advantages of a fairly lean Downing Street: ultimately the prime minister can’t focus on everything, and the structure favoured by Truss, in which the centre focuses on the economy and the health service, the two things the government has to absolutely get right in order to be re-elected, has a lot to recommend it.

But what I had missed is that Truss has not only slimmed down Downing Street but also reduced the number of special advisers across Whitehall. Special advisers, or “spads”, were created in their modern form by Harold Wilson back in 1964, though arguably the role predates Wilson’s reforms. (Wilson himself, who served as a civil servant during the war before becoming an MP and a minister under Clement Attlee was himself in many ways the proto-spad.)

The benefit of spads is that they, unlike most of Whitehall, are allowed to think and act politically. As this chart from the Institute for Government shows, the number of spads increased significantly under Boris Johnson:

Now, governments like to make great play about reducing the number of spads, and mostly, they’re talking nonsense. Gordon Brown “reduced” the number of special advisers compared with Tony Blair — by six. But that was very much a distinction without a difference: five of those missing special advisers had served in Gordon Brown’s Treasury. Plus, one reason there were fewer special advisers is that there was less intra-government conflict under Brown than there was under Blair (because the Brownites had won their civil war against the Blairites).

Because Boris Johnson was not particularly interested or capable in administration, the number of special advisers in Downing Street had to increase and the overall headcount had to go up. Truss is almost certainly right in my view to think she can do with less.

But given that her pared-down Downing Street will have less bandwidth to monitor all the departments outside her core political projects, reducing the number of spads so severely looks like an accident waiting to happen to me. Ultimately you do need some people who are allowed to think about politics and not just power for government to function. Added to that, the various ministers who can “attend cabinet” have fewer spads than “full” cabinet ministers. That feels like an accident waiting to happen given that Graham Stuart (the minister for climate), Tom Tugendhat (the security minister) and Jack Berry (cabinet office) all have responsibilities that straddle multiple departments.

All in all, Truss’s attempt to reduce the number of spads — radically departing from the government structure adopted by her predecessor — may be the right approach. But this comes with risks if she goes too far the other way.

Now try this

Hello, Georgina here. It was my birthday yesterday, and a close friend thoughtfully gave me a lovely illustration by Jack William Martindale. It portrays the front of the Nottingham House pub in Sheffield, about a five-minute walk from where I used to live.

Notty House carries special significance for me, and its phenomenal pies were a balm during the wintry, rougher days of 2020. In the pandemic, back when we couldn’t sit indoors with friends, the pub offered a cold version that you could heat yourself and eat at home. Perhaps it was that innovation we witnessed so much of in society, or the habit I built of warming the pie in the oven (mash in the microwave!), nestling the box in my lap as I switched on Netflix Party, which made familiarity — and not the unfamiliar rhythm of self-isolation — rush back. 

Try the chicken and wild mushroom pie, if you go. (Georgina Quach)

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