Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute of the Government.

I'm Hannah White, the director of the Institute and chair of our recently concluded commission

on the centre of government. Number 10, Downing Street

is underpowered, but compulsively micromanages across government. The cabinet office is bloated, unwieldy,

and uncertain of its purpose. The Prime Minister has become the undisputed executive leader of the

government, but they're not given the tools to set and maintain an overall strategy for the government to follow.

The powerful treasury steps into the vacuum that creates and sets its own de facto strategy by allocating money according to its own fiscal logic.

All this means that the centre of government's not capable of meeting the challenges facing the UK in the vital years to come.

These are the stark conclusions of a brand new Institute for Government Report,

one which we launched this Monday, in front of an audience packed with ministers,

representatives from the Labour Party serving civil servants, former permanent secretaries,

and representatives of business and civil society.

John Major and Gordon Brown shared a stage, something we don't see too often, and agreed

with much of what our report had to say, but more on that later, because this edition of

inside briefing is going to take a deep dive into the problems identified in our report

and our recommendations for change. It's the result of a year-long commission into the centre

of government, and I'm delighted that some of the core team behind the commission's work are here with me today. Joining us is Baroness Sally Morgan,

formerly Tony Blair's political secretary and director of government relations, and one of the

16 commissioners who supported our work over the past year. Hi, Sally. Morning. And I'm joined by

Alex Thomas and Jordan Urban, two IFG colleagues who've been

running the commission, doing all the research, interviewing hundreds of people with

experience of the centre and writing the final report. Hi, both. Hi, Hannah. Hi, Hannah. So let's

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