It's time to upgrade 10 Downing Street

There is a growing feeling that nothing is working in Britain. From the failed Trident missile test to two lost decades of wage growth, the causes are many and varied. But at least part of the problem lies in the apathy of successive governments. Their failure to define and implement a strategic vision can be attributed to the failure of institutions at the very center of the British state, which runs a 19th century operational system that is simply not up to the task. task of providing effective government in the 21st century. . If it is to succeed, as the Institute for Government has indicated, the next administration will need to reboot the center of government.

The center of British government is not designed for the modern world

Over much of the past 14 years, the political agenda has seen considerable change. We've seen big-state conservatism from Boris Johnson, small-state radicalism from Liz Truss and salami-sliced ​​managerialism from Rishi Sunak. We went from the greenest government ever to cutting out the green bullshit. Industrial strategies fell in and out of fashion while rail networks were half-built before being truncated. A decade in which corporate taxes fell and the personal income tax allowance increased was followed by the same party of government that made a concerted effort to overturn both programs. Inevitably, different prime ministers will have different priorities. But in recent years it has felt like the grand old Duke of York is in charge.

If the legitimacy of liberal democracy depends on its ability to meet citizens' expectations, then ours is in serious danger. Its ability to achieve this is severely hampered by the paradoxical combination of a highly centralized system and a weak and inefficient center.

And it gets worse. Francis Fukuyama argued that liberal democracies risk falling into decadence if their institutions, created for another era, fail to adapt to a changing world. If political institutions are patterns of behavior that outlast the individuals who run them at any given time, then, for all their symbolism, the center of British government is woefully lacking in the structures that could make it effective in the modern world.

Number 10 is too easily distracted and too prone to micromanagement

To bring about change, the government must have a clear and sustained focus on a set of policy priorities. But the center of government seems completely incapable of achieving this. Alternately distracted by the siren song of 24-hour news and social media, and mired in political micromanagement without the appropriate expertise, Number 10 is configured for neither strategy nor direction.

And a rudderless short-term view is self-reinforcing. The political costs of changing course are low if commitment to the previous direction was weak. Private sector stakeholders fail to align with a government agenda that changes with the seasons, further undermining government effectiveness and amplifying calls for a change in direction.

This strategic void is filled by a powerful, well-structured and capable Treasury that asserts its legitimate institutional priorities across government. A common misdiagnosis is that too powerful a Treasure equipped with his phalanx of acolytes of intelligent orthodoxy is a source of problems for the country. But essentially this ignores causation: only when the center is weak does strategy end up being dictated by narrow financial imperatives.

So it's time to move to level 10. The ability of governments to articulate and stick to a strategic direction depends in part on their life expectancy. But it also depends on their willingness to consciously put in place the institutional arrangements that allow this. For the next government to succeed, No 10 must tie itself to the mast of strategy and let the ship of state chart a steady course through the fray. This requires three nested changes.

The next government must tackle the institutional weaknesses of the center

First, upon taking office, the next government should translate its manifesto into a practical and binding program for the government. Rather than a list of policies, this published document would articulate a set of long-term strategic priorities that extend across departmental silos to illuminate the inevitable trade-offs during day-to-day governance. A powerful First Secretary of State, sitting in a newly staffed Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, in place of the Cabinet Office, should be responsible for its implementation.

A better-resourced Number 10 is essential to give them the clout to realize this vision. Key to this will be a priority group comprising teams of officials responsible for providing the Prime Minister with important economic advice independently of the Treasury, setting policy priorities in Whitehall, monitoring their implementation and resolving emerging issues.

Third, we need a radical overhaul of the way departmental budgets are set. If the government is to achieve its agenda, the budgetary framework and the expenditure review process must be aligned with it. To achieve this, some have advocated removing the spending control function from the Treasury, as is the case in several other English-speaking countries. But a less radical reorganization can achieve the same result. The task of setting fiscal rules and departmental budgets should be jointly entrusted to the Chancellor, the First Secretary and the Prime Minister in order to serve the government's stated priorities. This should be supported by structures that ensure equally collaborative public support and a process that moves away from the type of bilateral budget negotiations between the Treasury and individual departments that thwart cross-cutting approaches to complex issues.

As the general election approaches, the next government will face a series of daunting problems on its first day. It will have little hope of tackling these problems if the center of government fails to address its many institutional fragilities. The fate of the new administration and the public's confidence in our political system depend on its success.

Ian Mulheirn leads the Resolution Foundations' wealth research programme. He was previously executive director of the UK policy unit and chief economist at the Tony Blair Institute, and worked as an economic adviser to the Treasury.

Ian was a commissioner at the IfG Commission on Center of Government