This is your Grenfell, Minister.

It’s not always about more money

In September 2023 there was a change of policy in the UK about schools which had Reinforced Autoclave Aerated concrete (RAAC), because we discovered that what we had thought was safe, was actually not safe. These are huge planks of concrete that are used in roofs, and when they come down, they can come down in one piece. You really don't want them coming down anywhere near a child or a teacher. I still remember my first day in office when I sat down with the then director general responsible who said “This is your Grenfell, Minister”*. That gives you a pretty cold feeling in your stomach.

The solution previously had always been that we've got to rebuild these schools, which ultimately may well be true, but that was anywhere between £9 billion and £15 billion pounds, which wasn't, you know, instantly available. And for a few hundred million pounds, everything was made safe. Touch wood, unless somebody didn't tell us they've got RAAC, there isn't a school in the country that has RAAC that is not either being rebuilt now or has had safety measures taken which means the children and staff are safe.

* for non-UK readers: the Grenfell Tower was a high-rise block of flats in London that caught fire in 2017. It was the worst residential fire in the UK since World War Two and caused 72 deaths.

The three things external organisations get wrong

Firstly, there is often an inadequate problem diagnosis, and that's not just external organisations, government does it too. Secondly, there is an overemphasis on money as a solution without clear evidence that money will solve the problem. And thirdly, there is a tendency towards piecemeal approaches rather than a comprehensive strategy informed by operational insights.

It could well be that piecemeal approaches are the answer to many things, but they are just not the answer for government. Government shouldn't operate at a very micro level. We should leave that to the voluntary sector which has always done it very well… book reading groups should be organic community initiatives.

Align yourself with what the government wants to achieve

You need to start by understanding what the government or the minister in question wants to achieve. You're very unlikely to achieve it if it doesn't align with what the government wants to do. Trying to understand their ambitions and how your work does or doesn't fit in with that is important… put yourself in their shoes. But I would say that it would be extremely unlikely that I would get to meet an external organisation and hear their ideas without the blessing of the Civil Service because they are extremely strong gatekeepers.

The questions you need to answer

Does it fit with the Government's strategic priorities? Is there a good problem diagnosis? Is there an implementation model with costs, a plan, and a timetable? (You'd be amazed how many things come forward with no timetable.) Is the funding sufficient? Is this the point of maximum ROI? And, finally, how do we tell the story?

The three things research must have

Quantify the problem and break it down, and find the point of highest social return on investment. What one typically gets as a Minister is an essay. I would like qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis, and financial analysis. If I see all three, I feel like a decent job has been done. And I want to meet some real people—not intermediaries and lobby groups.

The role of think tanks

You should use your time in opposition for big ideas, so you go into power clear on how you're going to execute your agenda. Think tanks have a role to play in that fundamental thinking. Because if you get in, there is so much coming at you it's extremely hard to carve out time for new policy thinking. Having think tanks around when you are in government is helpful because you hit bumps along the way, and your ideas need refining. But my experience is that their projects are heavily influenced by the donors who fund them. I may be wrong, but I'm not aware of think tanks that have big reserves who can sit back and go, ‘the biggest issue we need to tackle now is X.’

Gold dust = analytical thinking + practical application + evaluation

Think tanks are necessary but not sufficient. One opportunity that they could build on, particularly the ones that are seen as less political, is teaming up with grant making trusts. So, let's imagine you're a think tank and you come up with a brilliant idea for something to do with housing , whatever it might be. You could team up with a grant making trust and say, "Here's our idea. Why don't you go and fund 10 pilots of this? We'll find someone to evaluate them." So by the time a government comes in we've got this thing which has got the analytical thinking, the practical application, and the evaluation with a bow tied around it. That would be gold dust.

AI is changing the rules of the game

There was a team in Number 10 and they developed ways of analysing consultations, when you may get 25,000+ replies. Rather than having three civil servants locked in a room for six months, now you can analyse those in the blink of an eye. But AI usage within government is very, very patchy and it's almost as if certain things just have to be turned off… you've just got to say you aren't allowed to analyse a consultation in a traditional way anymore, and we're going to put all these documents into an LLM with human oversight.

→ Read how we’re using LLMs in our consultancy work

Yes, Minister

There is still an awful lot of ‘Yes, Minister’. It's such a lesson now in opposition, I watch how people deal with the Government and I think ‘just tell them the truth’. Honestly, it's not helpful to sugarcoat stuff… ‘we really welcome this legislation da da da da da’. Governments want to do the right thing, and need to know where their proposals will and will not work. Handled well, outside groups might just be listened to!

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