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The Cabinet Manual: where’s the beef?
After almost two years of drafts, three select committee reports, the UK now has a Cabinet Manual. I received my shiny grey copy of the first edition of the Manual a few days ago, and am only just...
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Making Coalition Government Work: Lessons for the Future
In 2011 the Constitution Unit spent one year examining how the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition works. We interviewed almost 150 people about the Coalition: individuals from both parties—both in...
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Francis Maude’s Ambitious Civil Service Review
In the mid-term ministers’ fancy lightly turns to thoughts of civil service reform. The current government is no different. In recent months, various figures in the Coalition have expressed growing...
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Not all splits are coalition splits
Posted on behalf of Peter Waller The political commentariat love nothing more than predicting the end of the coalition, driven by splits and crises. And we have seen a rash of such stories this week...
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A split over the Permanent Secretary?
Posted on behalf of Peter Waller The press has reported today that No 10 has rejected the potential appointment of David Kennedy, currently CEO of the Climate Change committee as Permanent Secretary at...
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Ed Balls Ed Balls Ed Balls: Spad, Official or Both? The Joys of Research and...
10th May 2013 It is occasionally suggested by Whitehall veterans that Ed Balls began as a spad and ended as a civil servant. We have no such evidence that this happened. The confusion seems to lie in...
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Civil Service reform: is tinkering worth it?
Posted on behalf of Peter Waller The Constitution Unit this week held a seminar on the IPPR’s new report on Civil Service reform. Guy Lodge from the IPPR outlined the report and former Permanent...
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Hypocrisy, plotting and misogyny: Explaining the brutal nature of Australian...
Posted on behalf of Mark Bennister It would appear absurd and self-defeating to remove a sitting Prime Minister less than 3 months before a general election and return a leader who had himself been...
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Taking special advisers seriously
6th November 20103 Special advisers (spads) are in the news again. The Coalition government has finally (and belatedly) released its annual report on numbers and cost: there are now 98 spads in post—30...
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The latest Special Advisers reshuffle
A new book Special Advisers: Who they are, what they do and why they matter by Ben Yong and Robert Hazell is to be launched tonight at the Institute for Government. In this post, Ben Yong draws on the...
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