In the foreword of The Challenge of Being a Minister, the Institute for Government’s Director Andrew Adonis perhaps goes against the grain of the perceived commentariat wisdom. He argues that his own stint as a special adviser – which he compares to an apprenticeship – meant he was much better prepared to face the...

On Wednesday, the Foreign Secretary William Hague gave a statement to the House of Commons on the future of Britain’s diplomatic network.

Special advisers, or SpAds as they are not-so-affectionately known, seldom get good press. Gordon Brown vowed to trim their wings when he moved into No. 10, and the Conservatives’ hostility to SpAds was well established in the run up to the 2010 general election.

Coined 20 years ago by Harvard academic Joseph Nye, soft power has become an increasingly ubiquitous term. Simply put, it is the ability of a state to achieve a desired outcome through the leveraging of legitimacy – or better still, attraction.

Just over a month ago, non-executive directors (NEDs) from across government – from the smallest arm’s length bodies to Whitehall’s biggest departments – met at the Better Governance, Fewer Resources conference.