The ‘Not Fit For Purpose’ Department - Part 1
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 4 April 2026
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As an Easter treat, we thought we’d give you something a bit different.
Adam and Chris have got together to have a proper in depth look at the government department that deals with some of the most important and politically pertinent issues of our time - the Home Office.
The idea came up in October last year when Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood took over and said it was “not yet fit for purpose” and had been “set up to fail”.
She was channelling her predecessor of 20 years ago, John Reid, who first made the ‘not fit for purpose’ phrase famous.
With the help of former insiders and home secretaries, we’re asking, if the same verdict can be reached twenty years apart, are the problems in the department fundemental?
In this first of three episodes in the series, Adam and Chris are joined by former insiders. They are:
- Hannah Guerin, former advisor to Conservative Home Secretary Priti Patel - Former BBC home affairs correspondent and Yvette Cooper adviser Danny Shaw - Former Permanent Secretary David Normington
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The presenters were Adam Fleming and Chris Mason.It was made by the series producer Chris Flynn with Harry Craig. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The social producer was Grace Braddock. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Chris, shall we explain to people the bald experiment we're about to embark on? |
| 0:09.3 | We should. |
| 0:10.0 | So, we had a bit of an idea, didn't we? |
| 0:12.1 | A while ago, I think it was in the autumn, actually, wasn't it, |
| 0:14.3 | when there was a bit of a flare-up in the home office. |
| 0:17.5 | And you and I, who were not quite in the veteran category yet, |
| 0:21.1 | journalistically, but certainly have kicked around for, what, 20, 25 years, |
| 0:25.6 | started realizing there was a bit of a pattern, isn't there really, |
| 0:28.8 | about things that come up again and again around particular government departments, |
| 0:32.7 | and particularly the Home Office, which made us think, |
| 0:37.0 | maybe rather than just covering the story and then |
| 0:39.2 | moving on to the next thing, we ought to give ourselves a bit of space to think and to share |
| 0:43.6 | that thinking with newscasters around whether or not the Home Office, well, how it works, |
| 0:48.8 | whether it works, could it work better? Is it too big? The kind of questions that tend to come up over and over again |
| 0:55.8 | when things that the Home Office does make news, which is frequently. So we're making a three-part |
| 1:03.9 | mini-series where we will delve into the Home Office, the policy, the politics, the personalities, |
| 1:09.7 | the history and what's happening now. |
| 1:11.6 | So episode one, which you're listening to now, we will talk to some former advisors and people |
| 1:16.7 | from behind the scenes. Episode two, we will get two former home secretaries to sit down and |
| 1:22.3 | go head to head about their time in office. And in episode three, we will talk about how |
| 1:26.6 | we in the media cover |
... |
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