Five tips for Labour’s new special advisers

Once the public spectacle of a new prime minister and a new cadre of cabinet ministers settles, another part of the government’s hiring, firing and moving takes place behind the scenes for the special advisers (spads) that support ministers. 

There has been more and more hiring of spads in recent years. The latest Cabinet Office data release revealed that the Starmer government had a record 159 spads working in it,  with spads moving about government a consistent feature too. But the headline number means little if they aren’t being used well, and those Starmer government spads at times struggled to get to grips with the role. 

The arrival of the new prime minister and a reshuffled ministerial team has meant that a new cohort of spads is forming. Creating durable teams in departments will be key if the Burnham government hopes to avoid the mistakes of its predecessor. So to help them find their feet, the Institute for Government has published a series of targeted support guides for spads. Here are five key ways that spads can get things done in government.

1. Special advisers need to know their minister’s mind so they can speak with their voice

Ministers appoint special advisers as trusted figures to represent their interests in their department and beyond. This, and the overtly political nature of their role, sets them apart from officials – spads are the only people in the department, beyond other ministers, that can engage with explicitly political objectives, and this gives them significant influence. But to represent their minister in the department, spads need to know what their minister wants to achieve, while the minister in turn needs to trust their spads to speak on their behalf. This relationship takes time to build, but a good starting place for spads is identifying ministerial priorities and using these as a guiding star. 

Spads do not have to agree with their minister on everything and part of the role is about providing constructive challenge and identifying practical and political risks that may undermine an initiative. Because spads can have franker conversations with ministers, officials may seek their support to deliver difficult news or provide constructive pushback. 

2. Special advisers need to build relationships with the minister’s private office – and learn how to manage their own office

Many special advisers only experience the inner workings of government for the first time after being appointed and have to quickly get to grips with a complex array of processes and tasks, such as submissions. Private office sits in the centre of the department and can explain how things in government work as well as who is responsible for what. Spads need to work closely alongside their minister’s private office and a big part of this is active two-way communication. 

Special advisers will also have dedicated private office support themselves, and they need to think about how their private office can best support them. While private office should be adaptable, it may take time to establish what works and special advisers should revisit ways of working on a regular basis – particularly in the early months. 

3. Special advisers can support officials, focus minds and offer scrutiny – but should not duplicate work

Special advisers can sometimes spend more time with officials than with ministers, so investing in relationships across the department is crucial. Spads can do so by demonstrating their value to officials. For example, because spads know how to best frame evidence and advice through a political lens for their minister, civil servants will look to them to provide a sense check before work goes up the chain. In doing so spads need to avoid the temptation to replicate civil servants’ work – for example by re-writing submissions or digging too far into the detail of minor policy issues. Instead, spads should focus on adding value by providing guidance, scrutinising that work and helping civil servants understand what ministers want from them. 

At all times, spads must ensure that their minister’s priorities are forefront in their mind. They can be inundated with work from across the department – and while officials may view their own work as requiring urgent attention, spads will be able to judge what is urgent and make sure it is prioritised.

4. Submissions particularly benefit from spad input

One of the key ways special advisers support their minister is through submissions – the formal route for officials to provide advice and recommendations to ministers. Special advisers improve decision making by triaging submissions by urgency, and improve their quality by ensuring that they’re tailored to their minister’s preferences and stress-testing evidence and recommendations. They should not be afraid to send them back if they think more work is required.

Officials will be grateful for advice on how they can draft submissions that suit a ministers’ preferences, while still providing objective and frank advice. Over time, spads will also get a sense of how their ministers respond to particular issues – helping them to pattern match and predict how ministers may respond in future.

5. Special advisers can support comms teams in their work, but it is up to spads to drive political communications 

For comms spads, their priority will be communicating their ministers’ plans and achievements to a wider audience and managing the media – to do this effectively they need to cooperate with the No.10 press office, journalists and with the department’s communications team. They should empower officials rather than trying to co-opt the comms apparatus. This means setting up processes to agree on responsibilities and keep each other informed, and trusting officials to help manage many external media enquiries. If spads are the only point of contact for journalists, they will soon become overwhelmed.

Closer collaboration between spads of all stripes and communications teams will pay dividends, and more policy-focused spads can encourage better join-up by bringing comms experts into discussions at an early stage. Spads can also use their political perspective to help officials understand the political context and they can frame what success, for example of a comms campaign, looks like for the minister. 

Because civil servants are impartial, special advisers take responsibility for driving overtly political communications, such as party conference speeches. But this does not mean that they should cut officials out of the loop, and where policies are announced via such speeches officials must still be fully aware of the plans for doing so.

This is an example of a wider lesson for how spads and officials work most effectively together. Officials need to be fully aware of the political context they are operating in, and support ministers and spads to achieve their political goals while maintaining their impartiality. Spads can make officials aware of their political considerations, but shouldn’t involve them directly in political work. Striking the right balance – on both sides – only comes with experience.

Special advisers play an important role in helping ministers achieve their goals, but do not always get support to develop the skills and knowledge to do this effectively. The Institute for Government can help spads understand how government works, what ministers need from their teams and how they can get the best out of officials. Get in touch via [email protected] if you would like to know more about how we can help.