Memorandum by the Cabinet Office
INTRODUCTION
The Cabinet Office's aim is to make government
work better. It has three core functions:
— supporting the Prime Minister;
— supporting the Cabinet; and
— strengthening the Civil Service.
Its departmental strategic objectives (DSOs)
agreed as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement
are:
— Build an effective UK intelligence community
in support of UK national interests; and the capabilities to deal
with disruptive challenges to the UK.
— Support the Prime Minister and the Cabinet
in domestic, European, overseas and defence policy-making.
— Improve outcomes for the most excluded
people in society.
— Enable a thriving third sector.
— Transform public services so that they
better meet the individual needs of the citizen and business.
— Build the capacity and capability of
the Civil Service to deliver the Government's objectives.
— Promote the highest standards of propriety,
integrity and governance in public life.
The Cabinet Office is leading the cross-government
effort to deliver one of the 30 Public Service Agreements (PSAs):
— To increase the proportion of socially
excluded adults in settled accommodation and employment.
It is a delivery partner for three further PSAs:
— Build more cohesive, empowered communities.
— Reduce the risk to the UK and its interests
overseas from international terrorism.
— Reduce the impact of conflict through
enhanced UK and international effort.
1. To what extent have reforms outlined above
[ie since 1997] changed the nature and role of the Cabinet Office.
The Cabinet Office occupies a unique place at
the very heart of government, and responsiveness and flexibility
have been its central characteristics throughout its history.
Its creation in 1916 was an innovation driven by the demands of
war and—like other departments at the centre of government—the
Cabinet Office continues to respond to new challenges and changes
in priorities. The Cabinet Office's role in respect of supporting
the Prime Minister, supporting the Cabinet and strengthening the
Civil Service mean that it must respond quickly and flexibly to
the decisions Ministers, including the Prime Minister, make about
what the priorities are at any given time.
This has meant regular changes to the focus
of parts of the department as well as to its structure, alongside
strong elements of continuity in areas closely related to its
core functions. A number of units have been either created or
brought into the Cabinet Office to give a new focus to, or raise
the profile of, an area of policy, enhance coordination or improve
the delivery of key objectives. Some have since moved to permanent
homes in other parts of government or have been established independently;
if their existence was no longer needed, they have been wound
up, with any continuing functions being transferred to alternative
units or locations.
In this way, the Cabinet Office has continued
to evolve to meet the changing needs of government—through
improving joining up of policy-making, the co-ordination and delivery
of change and better outcomes for citizens and developing better
leadership, strategy and delivery capability—as well as
providing the support to the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Civil
Service without which the rest would be ineffective.
2. The Cabinet Office's mission statement is to
"make government work better"'. What has been the impact
of the reforms in realising this aim?
Throughout the period under review by the Committee,
and in particular since the publication of Modernising Government
in 1999, the Cabinet Office has taken active steps to drive
improvements in central government departments and the wider public
sector. Throughout this period, the Cabinet Office has sought
to balance central direction and oversight with the development
and ownership of improvement by departments themselves.
One of the more recent, and most prominent,
developments has been the launch by the Cabinet Secretary in 2005
of the Capability Review programme. This has led to a step change
in the way departments are held to account for their ability to
lead, set strategy and deliver on their objectives. The programme
has reviewed 19 major government departments, covering over 90%
of the Civil Service. Departments are assessed by external, very
senior reviewers drawn from the public, private and third sectors,
against a model of leadership, strategy and delivery.
All reviewed departments are required to agree
an action plan to address weaknesses identified by capability
reviews, and they are held to account for progress against their
plan through regular Cabinet Secretary "stocktakes"
and, after two years, a full re-assessment against the capability
model.
The Cabinet Office has so far fully re-assessed
11 departments, with a further five re-assessments to be completed
by the end of 2009. All departments have demonstrated evidence
of improvement, with particularly impressive results at the Home
Office, which improved in seven of the 10 categories. An independent
review of the Capability Review programme by the National Audit
Office in 2009 confirmed that the programme had improved capability
in Whitehall departments.
The Cabinet Office's own capability reassessment,
published in December 2008, showed that, although some areas required
further work, the department had improved in a number of areas
since its first review in 2006: improvements were achieved in
five of the 10 categories, indicating a strengthening of capability
at the centre of government.
In addition to running the Capability Review
programme, the Civil Service Capability Group at the Cabinet Office
has broader responsibility for helping to make the civil service
work better. The Civil Service Capability Group's activity includes:
— Leadership development and talent management,
including the establishment of the Top 200 community of the most
senior Civil Servants (those at Permanent Secretary and Director
General level).
— Working with departmental and agency
HR directors to develop the capability and performance of the
HR professionals and the HR function within the Civil Service.
— Undertaking capability-building projects
with departments, aimed at building on specific examples of good
practice and spreading them more widely across the Civil Service
including recent work with DIUS to develop and embed evidence-based
policy-making approaches.
— Responsibility for Civil Service governance
boards, the Permanent Secretaries Management Group (PSMG) and
Civil Service Steering Board (CSSB).
Again the evidence from Capability Reviews suggests
that significant progress has been made in these areas, particularly
in leadership by Permanent Secretaries and departmental management
boards. Among the 11 departments re-assessed so far, there has
been an overall increase of eight points in the ratings for "Set
Direction" and 10 points in the ratings for "Take responsibility
for leadership and change". Capability Reviews also show
that there is some way to go before Whitehall departments are
fully capable at managing and developing their own people, although
in this area some improvement has also been evident during the
course of the Capability Review programme—among those departments
reassessed so far, there has been an overall increase of six points
in the "Build Capability" category.
One indication of the impact of recent reforms
at the Cabinet Office is the extent to which the approaches and
structures adopted by the Cabinet Office have been replicated
in departments, thereby enhancing their own capability. The Prime
Minister's Strategy Unit for example, has raised awareness within
departments of the importance of, and tools and techniques for,
strategic thinking and strategy development. A number of departments
have subsequently created their own central Strategy Units, including
the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Home
Office and the Department of Health. Capability Reviews examine
departments' capabilities in strategy development, the clarity
of their strategic objectives and their abilities to base strategic
choices on evidence. Analysis across Whitehall shows that these
are areas of relative strength, suggesting that efforts to build
strategy capability in recent years have been successful.
Similar effects can be traced from the launch
of the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit. That unit succeeded in
helping departments to address some of the most difficult public
service delivery challenges they faced, resulting in tangible
improvements in key areas including health, education, home affairs
and transport. As with the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, departments
have increasingly deployed their internal resources using approaches
developed by Prime Minister's Delivery Unit, providing them with
greater flexibility and capability to address their most challenging
policy and delivery issues.
We believe this has been the right approach—for
the Cabinet Office to establish capability at the centre, and
over time to transfer responsibility and capability to departments
to fulfil the functions, initially established at the centre,
for themselves. The same is true of Capability Reviews: while
a central assessment capability will always be needed, the Cabinet
Office aims to ensure that departments are themselves taking ownership
for their own continuous improvement. Mechanisms to help them
achieve this include the increasingly effective use of non-executive
board members who are able to bring expertise and challenge from
other sectors; and the improving quality of management information
at the disposal of departmental management boards.
3. To what extent have the reforms improved
the three core functions of the Cabinet Office to "support
the Prime Minister, support the Cabinet and strengthen the Civil
Service"?
The Cabinet Secretariat was formed in December
1916 to record the proceedings of the Cabinet; to transmit the
decisions to 11 departments concerned in giving effect to them
or otherwise interested; to prepare agenda papers, arrange for
the attendance of Ministers and other persons concerned, and procure
and circulate documents required for discussion; and to attend
to correspondence connected with the work of the Cabinet. Until
this point no formal record had been made of the proceedings of
Cabinet. Primarily this role related to the Cabinet itself but
was extended to cover Cabinet committees as they were established.
As now, the members of the Secretariat were
the servants of Cabinet and its committees as whole, but particularly
of the Chairs, that is to say the Prime Minister in the case of
Cabinet itself, who they advised on any questions that may arise.
Although the role of the Secretariat has changed
over the years, the core functions remain similar. The 1944 memorandum
described them as follows:
(1) normal secretarial duties for the Cabinet
and its Committees;
(2) preparation of material and collation of
information on matters affecting several departments; and
(3) duties involving correspondence.
These three roles continue, but their work has
broadened to include advising the Prime Minister on current issues,
providing advice to the Prime Minister on the structure of government
("machinery of government changes") and co-ordinating
ad hoc policy issues where Departmental responsibility is not
clear or appropriate.
The division of the Cabinet Secretariat into
smaller management groups is also long-standing. The domestic
and foreign policy components of the (previously single) secretariat
were split in 1962 also divided were the European issues (established
in 1973), and intelligence. More recently, given the challenges
facing the country, new units were formed to focus on national
security and (in September 2008) to support the National Economic
Council.
It is important that different units operate
cohesively; all parts of the Secretariat are all responsible to
the Cabinet Secretary, and the Prime Minister. Mechanisms to encourage
this depend on current circumstances and priorities. In June 2007,
steps were taken to emphasise the link between the Secretariats
and the Prime Minister's Office, and the domestic Secretariat
was brought into the same management group as other units, for
example the Strategy Unit and the Office of the Third Sector,
whose work dealt predominantly with domestic policy. From April
2009, the domestic Secretariat has been merged with the NEC Secretariat,
while the Strategy Unit and the Office of the Third Sector have
been brought into a new group focussing on public service reform.
In respect of Government Communications, following
the Phillis review into Government Communications, in 2005 the
Cabinet Office recruited a new Permanent Secretary for Government
Communication to take on the role of head of profession for all
government communicators and to build the capabilities of communicators
in every government department.
The Government Communication Network (GCN) was
established in January 2005, following the disbandment of the
Government Information Communication Service (GICS) and a new
structure and process was put in place to develop a virtual network
of communicators working throughout government and its agencies.
The network is supported by a small team who
provide its members with a best practice framework for communicators
called Engage; a programme of events; courses; support to professional
and regional network groups; advice and guidance on best practice;
propriety; professional development and recruitment.
The structures that underpin the recruitment
and skills development of communication staff in government have
been completely overhauled and enhanced. The GCN People Strategy
focuses on a range of activities designed to promote professionalism
within the communication community. For example, an online personal
self assessment tool, Evolve, has been launched to identify skills
needs.
New developments in government communications
include the recruitment of a Director of Digital Engagement, who
will work across government departments to encourage, support
and challenge them in moving from communicating to citizens on
the web to conversing and collaborating with them through digital
technology.
The Cabinet Office is also leading the government
effort to incorporate behavioural theory into policy and delivery,
a radical new approach to policy development so that it goes with,
rather against the grain of human behaviour.
4. What has been the impact of the institutional
and capacity building of the Cabinet Office, in terms of its relationship
to Number 10, the Treasury and other Whitehall departments? Are
there clear examples of how the reforms have led to better policy-making?
This issue was reported on extensively by the
Cabinet Office Capability Review published in December 2008. This
concluded that "There has been a noticeable improvement in
relationships and co-ordination of activity in the centre of government
and a high standard of evidence based work is being achieved in
support of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and Government" while
noting that there was more to do to focus on outcomes rather than
processes. In support of this conclusion the Capability Review
noted:
— an improvement in relationships within
the centre of Government between Cabinet Office, Number 10 and
the Treasury and with other central government Departments; and
— collaborative working across the Civil
Service resulting the in the delivery of key pieces of strategic
work.
There are a number of examples of recent work
in the Cabinet Office leading to better policy making, going beyond
those quoted by the capability review report—Security
in a Global Hub (published November 2007), the Crime and
Communities Review (June 2008) and Food Matters (July
2008). Common to all these examples has been Cabinet Office using
its position to bring together the work of a variety of different
departments to achieve common objectives. Specific examples include:
(a) The work of the Strategy Unit—who have
built cross-government working into their operating model including:
co-locating some Strategy Unit staff and teams in departments;
developing policy tools and frameworks for departments to use;
running a regular seminar programme to debate significant policy
issues and share best practice; and using secondments and loans
of Strategy Unit staff to departments. A clear example of the
approach in practice is provided by Strategy Unit's work on social
mobility which successfully brought together the work of 11 government
departments to publish both the Social Mobility discussion paper
in Autumn 2008 and the New Opportunities White Paper in early
2009. This included key policy developments in areas such as:
— early years, for example extending free
childcare for disadvantaged two year olds;
— world class schools, for example new
£10k bonuses to get and keep the most effective teachers
in the schools that need them the most;
— transition to work including creating
35,000 new apprenticeship places so that all qualified young people
will have a right to an apprenticeship by 2013; and
— supporting families and communities including
£500 back to work training entitlement for parents and carers.
(b) In Information Technology a key development
has been the appointment of a Government Chief Information Officer
through open competition and the formation of a cross-government
CIO Council comprising the Chief Information Officers of the major
departments and with representation from local government and
the police. This has led to new cross-government policies and
initiatives developed through collaboration among the professional
heads of IT across government lead and focused by the Cabinet
Office. These have included:
— a cross-government programme to develop
the professional skills and capabilities of all people working
in IT in the public sector and ensuring their effective deployment
across the public sector;
— the development of the "Greening
Government ICT" Strategy. The work of the CIO Council led
by a small unit in the Cabinet Office has resulted in the UK government
being only the third government in the world to set a green ICT
strategy, and the first to mandate specifications; and
— the Shared Service Team in the Cabinet
Office have taken the lead role in promoting shared service solutions
to save resource in "back office" functions such as
HR and Finance.
(c) The Social Enterprise Action Research (SEAR)
programme run by the Office of the Third Sector which enables
a range of government departments to undertake projects which
develop their understanding of how social enterprise can help
meet their strategic objectives. It is intended that evidence
from these projects will be used to support strategic departmental
decision-making on policy programmes in the medium term (2011-14),
encouraging a wider use of social enterprise solutions to policy
problems. The SEAR programme is popular with departments and the
sector. Four projects are currently underway:
— The Department of Health is piloting
Social Return on Investment (SROI) assessments with six social
enterprises delivering primary care.
— The Department for Communities and Local
Government is following 10 organisations seeking to undertake
a community share or bond issue—a mechanism which allows
communities to club together to buy all or part of a social enterprise.
— The National Offender Management Service
is starting with a mapping exercise of social enterprises within
the criminal justice sector. It will then scope what models of
social enterprise work best within custodial and community settings,
seeking to replicate and/or expand successful projects.
— The Department for Business, Enterprise
and Regulatory Reform is examining different ways in which Community
Development Finance Institutions can move towards sustainability.
5. To what extent has the marked increase in central
capacity based on a programme of creating more units round the
Cabinet Office and Number 10 exacerbated the complexity at the
heart of central government?
There has been no programme to create more units
around the Cabinet Office and Number 10. The size of the Cabinet
Office has been reducing over the last few years, and now has
1,500 fewer employees than it did in 1997. Nevertheless, the potential
for confusion between different parts of the centre of government
remains. A number of steps have been taken to address this risk,
including:
— clarifying the Cabinet Office's role
and purpose in supporting the Prime Minister, supporting the Cabinet
and strengthening the Civil Service;
— improving relationships with the departments'
partners by, for example, developing and adopting a "Compact"
governing the relationship between the Cabinet Office, the Treasury
and departments;
— carrying out special projects to address
potential overlap and confusion. For example, the "Role of
the Centre" programme is overhauling the way in which departmental
performance is assessed and creating a single, unified system
for central evaluation of performance against finance, delivery
and capability objectives and a coherent framework through which
the centre supports and drives improvements in the delivery of
the Government's priorities; and
— improving internal coherence and ways
of working within and outside the Cabinet Office by, for example,
establishing "matrix teams" made up of staff working
in different areas of the Cabinet Office and the Treasury to share
information, identify and wherever possible resolve differences
of perspectives and plan more strategic interaction with partners.
There is evidence to show that the Cabinet Office
and the rest of the centre of government are becoming more effective.
The report of the second review of Cabinet Office capability flagged
up areas where work continued to be needed, but recognised a noticeable
improvement in relationships and coordination of activity at the
centre of government and a notably high standard of evidence based
work in support of the Prime Minister, Cabinet and government
since 2006.
A similar picture emerged from the Cabinet Office's
survey of its main stakeholders. While there were suggestions
of areas for further improvement, overall feedback was broadly
favourable and there was widespread recognition that the Cabinet
Office has identified the right priorities for it to address and
is making progress on them. There was strong praise for the department's
performance in respect of supporting Cabinet and its committees.
The Cabinet Office and HM Treasury will be conducting joint surveys
on their stakeholders in future.
6. What impact have the changes had on other Government
departments? How effective have the reforms been at improving
communication and co-ordination with organisations beyond Whitehall's
core and so improving policy delivery?
In recent years, central initiatives have sought
to develop departments' abilities to understand the landscape
of organisations with which they must work to achieve policy objectives,
and to improve their abilities to understand, and facilitate the
effective operation of, whole delivery chains. Communication across
organisational boundaries, both within and beyond Whitehall, is
becoming even more important in an era of cross-cutting PSAs and
major policy challenges, such as an ageing population, childhood
obesity and climate change, which cut across the responsibilities
of any one department or agency.
Capability Reviews assess departments' abilities
to engage with stakeholders; to involve them effectively in the
strategy and policy-making process from an early stage; and to
work across organisational boundaries to build common purpose
in strategic objectives. Future rounds of Capability Reviews will
place even greater emphasis on these aspects of capability. The
Cabinet Office is currently working on the next iteration of the
Capability Review model to ensure that collaboration, innovation
and learning from delivery bodies are tested more explicitly.
Already, there are signs that the reviews have prompted central
departments to align more closely with their delivery partners;
the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
for example, has taken steps to bring together the various agencies
in the "BERR Family" to share good practice, address
common issues and learn from the expertise held in each of the
individual organisations.
The Prime Minister's Delivery Unit's work with
high-priority delivery departments, including the Department of
Health, Home Office and Department for Transport, has also helped
those departments to understand better their delivery systems
and the points in the system at which action to improve delivery
should be targeted. Whitehall departments are now more familiar
with the language of delivery, and adept at analysing their delivery
systems to address weaknesses. The Prime Minister's Delivery Unit
has also been able to assist departments in planning for the delivery
of cross-cutting PSAs under CSR07—a set of strategic objectives
which require departments to work more closely together than ever
before to tackle cross-cutting policy challenges. PSA Boards are
now in place, for example, to co-ordinate action between departments
towards PSA targets.
The recent successful G20 summit was a good
example of the ability of the Cabinet Office to bring Whitehall
departments, and other nations, together to achieve a common goal.
The National Economic Council, created in 2008 to address cross-cutting
issues created by the economic downturn, is another example of
central co-ordination bringing together diverse interests from
across and beyond Whitehall successfully to achieve common objectives.
7. Which set of actors/individuals—between
those of ministers and civil servants—had a greater impact
on shaping the reform process at the centre of government?
A recent Cabinet Office publication Civil
Service Reform: working paper provides a brief overview of
the importance and nature of Civil Service reform and sets out:
— some of the major interventions over
the past 10 years;
— what we know about the drivers and rationale
for further Civil Service reform; and
— how best to implement change and reform.
The paper is available on the Cabinet Office
website at: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/124376/civilservice_reform_paper.pdf
9 June 2009
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