Effective transitions of prime minister: lessons for Andy Burnham

The UK is going to have a new prime minister, possibly by 17 July if no leadership contest takes place. Less than a month is hardly adequate time for Keir Starmer’s successor, who seems certain to be Andy Burnham, to prepare. If Burnham does end up taking up the premiership uncontested, he needs to understand the particular challenges that prime ministers face when transitioning into government mid-term, and use that understanding to guide how he prioritises his own preparation.  

Any new prime minister is going to want to make changes to how government works and what their government does, and will inevitably promise that their government will be different. But a mid-term prime minister inherits the people and policies of the PM they replace within their own party. The challenge for Burnham is to reshape government and the policy agenda as efficiently as possible in a short timescale, balancing continuity and change.  

Get the right people and structures in No.10

Getting No.10 right means having the right structures and right people. Successive prime ministers have struggled with this challenge, and mid-term prime ministers don’t have the benefit of a tried and tested team forged in opposition. Downing Street is too often built around the people the incoming prime minister knows or wants to reward, rather than around the roles and personnel they will need. This means thinking through the capabilities they require – including on strategy, delivery and policy – and consciously learning from previous administrations about the different ways such capabilities work and interact with each other.

Building a high-performing team in No.10 relies on clarity from the PM. If No.10 can’t speak authentically for the prime minister, with a single coherent voice, the result will be a system unclear on what it is supposed to be doing, that may degenerate into infighting or inaction.  

Burnham appears to have started on the right track. Appointing James Purnell to the role of chief-of-staff suggests that he has sought someone with experience and knowledge to do the role, as well as someone who knows him well. The same thinking should apply to other roles. Burnham and Purnell will have to think about how to build a team – the key is to design it in a clear-sighted way – to enhance the positive qualities of the prime minister and to compensate for his weaknesses.

Take advantage of civil service continuity but don’t be afraid to reshape the centre  

As well as making political appointments, new prime ministers need to build relationships with the civil servants they inherit at the centre, the most important being their private office and the cabinet secretary. The role of the principal private secretary to the PM is to provide continuity and experience to any incoming PM. Most critically, an incoming PM needs rapidly to build an effective working relationship with the cabinet secretary who can help diagnose the strengths and weaknesses in the capabilities of the centre as it currently operates. Prime ministers should make reforms at the centre from a position of strength at the start of their premiership, not when trying to find a hero to rescue it.  

Given Burnham’s brief transition period, access talks organised for him by the cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, will be an incredibly important opportunity. Romeo will be a crucial player in helping to help make a transition a success – helping him move swiftly to address the deficiencies in the way the centre works that will otherwise impair his ability to deliver his agenda. This should include beefing up the strategic capacity at the centre, using the policy and delivery units well, and improving the way in which decisions are made within government. In all this, Dan York Smith – the PM’s principal private secretary – can provide vital continuity and understanding of the machine. Burnham should avoid repeating the damaging churn in recent years in this role.  

Use preparation time to think about how to make choices in government

One set of decisions every incoming prime minister must make is what to do with the agenda of their predecessor. For a mid-term prime minister, the challenge is where to align with the policies their party has already been pursuing and where to diverge and set a new agenda. They must clearly signal to departments where they are content with continuity and where they want them to change course.  

For Burnham, it is only a couple of months since the Starmer government set out a very large programme of legislation in the King’s speech and a year since the spending review set departmental budgets for three years. Three and a half weeks is nowhere near enough time for any new PM to think through all policy. For Burnham it is more likely to be spent identifying a few key priorities to signal change, and where to reassure on continuity.  

Burnham will be inundated with ideas from those inside and outside government about what to do. Any major changes, dropping of major policy or moves away from manifesto commitments will be big political signals and scrutinised very closely. If he does become PM unopposed he and his team could use the summer to have departments start conducting a broad policy audit with continuing and incoming ministers.

As well as evaluating policy, incoming prime ministers need to think carefully about how to prioritise their own time. Foreign, defence and national security priorities can easily absorb all a PM’s bandwidth. Burnham will face a challenging international context and is taking over from a PM who has built up strong international relationships and had prioritised that aspect of the role. Burnham’s picks for foreign and defence secretary, and National Security Adviser, where it is reported he will be bringing Olly Robbins back to government if Jonathan Powell steps down, will be crucial in determining how he approaches this aspect of his role. The role of chief minister in the Cabinet Office has also become an essential role – Burnham needs to appoint a minister capable of undertaking a brokering role from the centre, to whom he can delegate policy oversight when the international stage is dominant.  

Prioritise the parliamentary party and the effectiveness of government ministers

A new PM must think about how to take the Parliamentary party with them on difficult choices. This is an area where many recent prime ministers have fallen short. The challenges facing UK government are immense, and Burnham will face no shortage of difficult trade-offs. He has started getting to know the new intake, but with new relationships will come rising expectations. Both whips and parliamentary private secretaries – who should be the bridge between departments and backbenchers – will be crucial to maintaining those relationships, as well as feeding back intelligence to No10. The PPS role is no longer just the first rung on the ministerial ladder as it was when Burnham was last in Westminster. He needs to invest in that layer of government.    

Any new PM wants to reward allies, and refresh or rebalance the ministerial ranks, but it is impossible to conduct any post-takeover reshuffle without disappointing MPs or making new enemies. With such a large parliamentary party, Burnham will not lack for people wanting jobs. With limited time to make progress, he must think about building ministerial teams who can see him through the next two to three years without losing momentum. Junior ministers are often the unsung workhorses of getting policy through and overseeing implementation. Individuals in these roles are often the victims of the tail-end of reshuffles when other people need to be brought in, but the importance of continuity in these ranks should not be underestimated.

Don’t assume ‘it’ll be different because it is me’.  

Every new administration enters office assured of the failings of their predecessors – before realising that governing at the highest level is incredibly difficult. Incoming governments often assume that results will be better simply because it “is us, not them”, and new prime ministers might be tempted to think that “being better” is all that is needed.  

But scrutiny increases markedly when in government and own goals can rapidly reduce public trust and party morale. It is all too easy to be distracted and bogged down by as political crises increase on issues or individuals, as Keir Starmer found out to his cost through a series of headlines on expenses claims and then the fall-out over the appointment of Peter Mandelson.  

With limited time to make his final preparations for the role he has long coveted, Burnham must be efficient and ruthless about how he prioritises. Simply being Andy Burnham is not enough to make government work better. To make a success of his premiership, Burnham needs to know what he wants to do differently from his predecessors, and why. He then needs to actively design and run his administration with these objectives in mind at all times.