10 Downing Street - Dods Monitoring

Ian Watmore (left),
the Cabinet Office
Permanent Secretary,
works closely with
Kris Murrin, the Head
of Implementation,
to try to knit together
the ‘implementation’
functions of the
Cabinet with
Number 10’s own
implementation tasks
Maude is responsible) with Number 10’s own
implementation tasks.
The policy and Implementation Unit itself
is staffed by officials of various ages, some of
whom have links to the Conservatives, some
of whom are traditionally neutral career civil
servants. Many have worked both in and out of
government. There is a nine-strong team of ‘man
markers’ (see next page), who have to make sure
that Whitehall departments are on track.
So far, the Unit has been successful in
helping David Cameron in cleaning up after
previous U-turns and in avoiding repetition of
past mistakes. It is viewed by the Conservatives
and liberal Democrats as a shared resource, and
lib Dem policy chief Julian Astle works with
it as closely as the Tories. Even though Steve
Hilton has gone on sabbatical, his deputy rohan
Silva has regular liaison with the Unit team.
But despite the political input, perhaps what
is most interesting about the Cameron Downing
Street is the importance of civil servants. While
Kirby and Murrin are in overall charge of the
unit, they report directly to Sir Jeremy Heywood,
the Cabinet Secretary. It is claimed that Sir
Jeremy was the key figure who persuaded
Cameron to go for a civil service-dominated
policy unit. A veteran of the Blair and Brown
reigns in Number 10, Heywood was the first
and only permanent Secretary of the prime
Minister’s Office before his elevation to his
current post at the start of this year.
As if to underline the diminution of the
special adviser cadre, the prime Minister
took the unusual step of not replacing James
O’Shaughnessy, who resigned as policy Director
last year. His role, once seen as the vital link
with the Conservative party, was absorbed by
Hilton’s team. While Hilton was seen by insiders
as providing the prime Minister with ‘emotional
intelligence’, O’Shaughnessy provided the
‘rational intelligence’ – the yin to Hilton’s yang.
With Hilton’s departure, neither is there.
Some Conservatives grumble that there
isn’t enough of a political counterweight to the
civil service. But there are ‘political’ people in
Downing Street with a policy role. Major era
veteran patrick rock is a key part of the team,
working alongside Silva. They don’t ‘man mark’
individual departments and instead supervise
Most interesting about the
Cameron Downing Street is the
importance of civil servants
cross-government plans. Andrew Dunlop
is another ‘political’ staffer who takes care of
Scotland policy.
Former Number 10 insiders believe that
although Cameron has learned that he needs a
firm central grip on his departments, he stored
up further trouble by watering down the status
of his political advisers. Under Blair and Brown,
policy Unit staff sat in on all key departmental
meetings and were seen as the pM’s ‘man in
the room’. They weren’t more powerful than
Cabinet ministers, but often they had more
clout than ministers of state and stood up to civil
servants as a result.
AprIl 2012 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | 13