Preparing for Power – Ep.2: The Civil Service

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2024

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Whoever forms the next government will need to be prepared. The job begins almost as soon as the votes have been counted. Preparing for Power, a special six-part series from the Institute for Government, takes you behind the scenes to find out how our politicians, their advisers and officials block out the noise of a general election campaign to get ready for being in government. Episode 2 explores how the civil service prepare for a potential transition of government, with five former permanent secretaries revealing how they readied themselves and their departments for a potential change in their political bosses. How does Whitehall prepare for a change in the party in power? What can civil servants do to get ready for a hung parliament? And how do they continue to serve the current government while these preparations are going on? In this episode of preparing for power, we speak to former senior civil servants to discover how they prepared for that all important election result and its aftermath, hear their secrets, and work out the lessons for 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	These are your masters, your political masters and your political masters might change, and it might be a completely new lot.
0:15.0	Or it might be that your political masters get a regeneration, they've got a fantastic mandate. They've won again. I remember off the 92
0:22.0	election thinking maybe it would never happen. But it did within five years. And I suspect some
0:27.0	people thought after the last election, there's never going to be a change of government. And now
0:31.4	it's quite possible. Hello and welcome to preparing for power, a special inside briefing podcast
0:36.8	brought to you by the Institute for Government.
0:39.1	The days, weeks and months ahead are going to be dominated by opinion polls and campaign slogans, policy pledges and manifesto launches.
0:47.4	But what about the morning after election night?
0:50.3	Whoever forms the next government will need to be prepared and the job begins almost as soon as the votes have been counted.
0:56.0	So what is it like to go from opposition to government overnight?
1:00.0	How do civil servants get ready for the possibility of a transition of power or a hung parliament?
1:05.0	And what is it like for a governing party to continue in power after a bruising campaign?
1:10.0	Over the next six weeks, the Institute for Government will be taking you behind the scenes
1:14.4	to find out how our politicians, advisers and officials block out the noise of a general election
1:19.4	campaign to get ready for being in government.
1:22.8	We'll be speaking to former ministers, special advisors and senior civil servants to discover
1:27.3	how they prepared for that all-important election result and its aftermath, to hear their secrets and to work out the lessons for 2024.
1:36.3	I'm Catherine Hatton, Program Director at the Institute for Government.
1:50.3	In this episode, we'll be looking at how the civil service prepare for a potential transition of government.
1:56.2	For many civil servants, general elections epitomise the fundamental role that the civil service provides.
2:01.9	They are there to provide the permanency of government, staying on to serve whoever wins a general election,
2:08.0	and provide continuity in advice and expertise. Gus O'Donnell, now Lord O'Donnell, was in number 10 for the 1992 general election and then Cabinet Secretary in 2010. They're always exciting,
	...

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