📜 How often do you update your policy stakeholder map?

Everything starts with your stakeholder maps

You need to be somebody who lives and breathes politics to stay up to speed with who matters. Check Playbook every morning, listen to political podcasts on your daily walk or in the gym, read Tim Shipman, Patrick Maguire and George Parker analysis and follow PoliticsHome, ConHome and Labour List. And it’s not only about elected people in the spheres of influence, but those in the periphery as well – think-tankers, journalists and campaigners. This will help retain a sense of day-to-day government priorities, challenges and trade-offs, and possible shifts in the political environment. On a practical level, I review our key political stakeholder maps on a weekly basis.

Build your relationships before you need them

You don’t want to always be asking for something from people. If we have a new report being published, or new research or insights relevant to someone’s interests I try to proactively share that. Or if I’m doing a cold reach-out I’ll start by saying ‘I saw your piece in the FT on tariffs’ or ‘I know that you’re really interested in this, have you seen our report?’ – not asking for anything, but demonstrating that you could be helpful in some way. It helps you foster deeper connections beyond regular catch-ups that cover the same ground of ‘What are we working on, what are you working on?’ When it’s a moment for a challenging conversation, or you have to relay a difficult message, it’ll land much better if you’ve taken the time to develop that relationship. 

Establish unusual coalition partners 

During the pandemic, the CBI worked in lockstep with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) [for non-UK readers: the TUC is the CBI’s equivalent for Trade Unions] and the Government to design the furlough scheme. This was a really powerful example of tripartism in action which ensured economic security for thousands of people. The picture of our then Director-General Carolyn Fairbairn standing outside No.11 with the TUC’s Frances O’Grady and Rishi Sunak, was an incredibly proud moment. Another example was the collaboration between trade unions, charities, civil society organisations – with us as the business voice – who together formed a powerful coalition that helped to get childcare policy unstuck. The expansion of free childcare for working parents, announced by Jeremy Hunt in his 2023 Spring Budget, was a big moment for the CBI that colleagues still talk about. Both of these happened because we worked with unusual bedfellows. It’s powerful.

Let the evidence do the talking

The number one consideration for us when we’re heading into any meeting is ensuring we know how much our policies are costing, and how much it will raise. So, any kind of analysis in terms of the impact, either having the cost of inaction or the growth they could leverage is important. When we campaigned for increased investment in childcare for the 2023 budget, it wasn’t until we came in with costs that we were able to talk to then Chancellor Jeremy Hunt about childcare reform. This allowed us to say this is actually a really big issue for economic growth, and that you’re blocking people out of the workplace because you’re not funding childcare properly, resulting in all this lost talent. 

Adapt your language to the faction in power

Everything needs to be viewed through the government missions and economic growth. When Truss was leader everything was couched in the language of unleashing the market, and for Johnson we had “boosterism” – now everything is very much framed around Labour’s missions. While growth has been the ambition for all their respective playbooks on how to reach it was different, so we had to adapt our approach accordingly. Once you start from that viewpoint it’s a little bit easier to think about the stuff which is likely to land. There is the practical question of how to do that. Many businesses seek our help navigating what can sometimes appear an opaque civil service with structures, especially small businesses who don’t have big policy or public affairs teams, and our members are mostly asking questions about how the missions are practically working.

Be one step ahead the government, not ten

When it comes to trying to influence change I think it has to be pragmatic – be one or two steps ahead of the government’s thinking, but not ten. We come from the mentality where you want to be slightly pushing on the government’s Overton window, but not coming across as tone-deaf to the realities they are facing. At the end of the day, there’s no obligation to listen to you and they have a million things on their desk to deal with. Make sure to come out with praise when they deliver something you’ve asked for and give credit where it’s due. This makes it easier to dial up the rhetoric when you need to.