Estrategia de Producto y Marca

We undertook a survey of how central government departments structure their policy functions.199

• A central strategy unit that would typically deal with long-term, cross-cutting issues;

Our first intention was to discover whether any of the following were present:

• A central policy unit that would typically produce and coordinate departmental policy;

• A flexible pool of policy makers who can be deployed quickly to policy areas; or • A body that scrutinises policy centrally and links to ministers, along the lines of a

board or committee – more senior and reactive than a policy unit.200

Our findings are presented in Figure 8 (correct as of October 2010).201

198 _{See, for example, Bill Jones, ‘Climbing the Greasy Pole: Promotion in British Politics’, The Political Quarterly,} vol. 81:4, 2010, pp. 616-626; Peter Riddell, Honest Opportunism: The Rise of the Career Politician, Phoenix, 1993.

199 _{The respondents consisted of those who we had previously interviewed or, for departments we did not} cover in interviews, personal civil service contacts.

200 _{We included this final category because some departments lack a central policy unit, but have a small high-} level Policy Committee to support Ministers.

201 _{Note that this table gives a very high level overview of the situation – flexible pools may exist within} directorates, but not at departmental level; similarly, there may be policy units for major functions within large departments, but not for the department as a whole (as in the DWP).

7. Structures 68

Figure 8 - Structure of departmental policy functions

The most obvious finding is the variety of structures that departments have been adopted. This diversity is not a bad thing in itself, since departments deal with significantly different policy areas and vary greatly in size and structure.202

The other main finding is that the situation is in flux (which partly explains the current variety). The most obvious trend is the increasing adoption of flexible pools over the past few years.

But what seems to be lacking is any evaluation or evidence base on which structures work well in which circumstances.

203

We have designed a whole set of processes whereby you scope and resource priority projects, which is an attempt to create some rigour around what genuinely are the departmental priorities... I think it has been reasonably effective, although there is still a big tail around the department that hasn't gone into this kind of way of working.

Practically all the departments have some kind of pool or are likely to adopt one soon. Most interviewees were positive about the purpose of these pools and their impact so far, while noting that they remain under development. In the words of one interviewee:

202 _{A flexible pool of policy makers is quite a different proposition for DCMS and for MoJ, for example. DCMS is} a small, relatively centralised department; MoJ is a large, dispersed, recently merged department, with a complex organisational structure.

203 _{See, for example, the discussion of Defra’s Flexible Staff Resourcing System in Cabinet Office, Department}

for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Progress and Next Steps, 2009; available at: http://www.civilservice.gov.uk/Assets/DEFRA-WEB_tcm6-6651.PDF

BIS CLG DCMS Defra DfE DH DWP HMT HO MOJ

Centralstrategy unit

Central policy unit

Flexible pool

Centralpolicy scrutiny with ministerial link

7. Structures 69

Other data we gathered confirmed this state of flux. For example, we asked respondents which part of the department would initiate a particular type of policy (e.g. urgent ministerial priority, novel issue, and so on).204 _{Most agreed that standing policy teams generally handled initiatives}

that fell under existing areas of responsibility. However, there was considerable variety in the policies assigned to strategy units, policy units and flexible pools:205

Figure 9 – Work of strategy units, policy units and flexible pools

Policy characteristic Structure

Strategy Unit Policy Unit Flexible pool

Cross-cutting area Defra, DWP, HO DH DWP

Novel area

(i.e. not previously assigned in department)

CLG, Defra, HO CLG CLG, MoJ, Defra

Long-term issue DH HO

Current ministerial priority DH DWP

Challenges to existing

policies CLG, DWP

The movement to flexible policy pools is the most widespread, significant and recent of the changes to the departmental policy structures. Flexible pools offer major potential benefits. They can deploy resources more flexibly in order to overcome institutional inertia, which can lock people into big standing teams pursuing priorities that have been superseded. According to one estimate, in some government policy departments “as little as 30 per cent of staff time is invested in delivering priority projects”.206

204 _{The question we asked was: “If a Minister wanted to develop a new policy option, which part of the} department would take the lead? Would the answer depend on the type of policy? If so, please feel free to fill in more than one column, with an explanation for the differences.” A table then gave the following options: Strategy Unit, Central policy unit, Newly created team from flexible pool, Standing policy team, Other.

Of course, effective policy making may also be about anticipating priority areas to prevent extra costs in the future. But the potential efficiency they offer is particularly attractive given the ongoing cuts to Whitehall running costs, as many of our interviewees pointed out.

205 _{This table is purely indicative of current civil service perceptions. Our intention was not to create a} representative sample, but to illustrate the diversity of functions that informed senior civil servants believe these units to possess.

206 _{Harriett Oppenheimer, ‘Flexibility will be Needed if Radical Targets are to be Met’, The Times, 10 September,} 2010.

7. Structures 70

Nevertheless, if flexible policy pools are to fulfil their potential and prevent new problems, two important points need to be addressed:

1. Extent of reform efforts. The current reforms appear to be partial: their success may be dependent on reforming other structures as well; and

2. Consequences for policy making. Changing the structures that support policy making in this way will naturally affect the way policy is made. For example, it may encourage a more project-based approach to policy making, at the expense of sustained engagement with a particular issue. What benefits and disadvantages will this bring?

The rest of the chapter deals with the first question; we address the second question in our System Stewardship report. As noted above, flexible pools are still under development. There are four main structural issues that also need to be addressed for them to succeed: governance, career structures, team composition, and knowledge management.