Department

It may lack glamour, but the
role of a special adviser at
the DfT is packed and varied,
recalls Claire MacAleese
The role of special adviser at the
Department for Transport (DfT) is
not the most glamorous of political
jobs, though a previous occupant of
my post had created quite a stir when
she suggested 9/11 was a “good day to bury
bad news”. The scar left by the fallout from that
moment of madness made the civil servants I
met in my first week as a new adviser to Geoff
Hoon more determined to stress their political
neutrality. Some even invoked Jo Moore’s
memory, presumably as a reminder of what
could happen to me if I stepped out of line.
Yet during my time at the DfT I found that
the most effective civil servants understood
that transport is often intensely political, if
not always party political. Few subjects can
galvanize grass-roots support or opposition
more than a new runway, road or rail line, or
the removal of a local service. When I started,
my excellent fellow Special Advisor David
Leam told me that when an MP called he could
usually predict their issue before they spoke,
and within months I was playing this politician
transport bingo too.
As an advisor, part of my job was
understanding and communicating the
Secretary of State’s objectives and removing
distraction. It involved fielding political and
personal press enquiries, following-up on
passing conversations with journalists or
MPs, and delegating visits to junior ministers.
We would resolve the political implications
of poorly-drafted answers to Parliamentary
Questions before they reached Ministers’
desks. All to ensure that an important
announcement did not coincide with the
publication of tricky statistics that might
distract from the Government’s agenda.
Another part of my role was to intercept
potentially damaging stories. After a day
of meetings and speaking to journalists,
politicians, Labour Party staff and Unions
it was not unusual to read an unsolicited
document from officials proposing to close an
A road for months on end or put restrictions on
drivers that would make a damaging response
to a freedom of information request and news
story.
You got an insight into the prejudices
that reside in the Government machine. No
documents bemused me more than those
about my native North East; in answer to
questions about a lack of investment and
the cancellation of a traffic scheme in the
region, papers came back describing an
area unburdened by the need for roads,
March 2013 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | 37