Working to make government more effective

Working to make government more effective

Downing Street

Commission on the Centre of Government

How to radically improve the centre of government.

The Institute for Government’s Commission on the Centre of Government is looking at why No.10, the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury do not always work as well as they should and what could be done to radically improve the centre of UK government.

A poorly organised centre is one of the core weaknesses of UK government. Successive prime ministers have found that their ability to deliver their priorities has not been helped, and has sometimes been hindered,  by the way the centre of government is structured, and by failings in No.10, the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. In particular, in recent years the strains of responding to Brexit and Covid have exposed deep problems.

This is why the Institute for Government has brought together a Commission to examine the problems at the centre of government and to recommend solutions. The Centre Commission’s purpose is:

To produce concrete recommendations for a confident, proactive, coherently-structured centre of government equipped to meet the challenges and take the opportunities of the 21st century and deliver for the people of the UK.

Power with purpose: Final report of the Commission on the Centre of Government

No.10 and the Cabinet Office be merged to form a new Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to enable more strategic control at the centre of government.

Read the report
10 Downing Street

The Commission published its final report on March 11th 2024. The Commissioners are:

  • Dr Hannah White OBE (Chair) – Director of the Institute for Government
  • Sir Anthony Seldon FRSA FRHistS FKC (Deputy Chair)
  • Baroness (Louise) Casey of Blackstock, DBE, CB
  • Rt Hon. Professor the Lord (Ara) Darzi of Denham KBE FRS FMedSci HonFREng
  • Lord (Danny) Finkelstein, OBE
  • Rt Hon. Sir Lawrence Freedman, KCMG, CBE, FBA
  • Rt Hon. Sajid Javid MP
  • Professor Matthew Juniper
  • Sir John Kingman KCB FRS
  • Sir Richard Lambert
  • Baroness (Martha) Lane-Fox of Soho, CBE
  • Anne McElvoy
  • Baroness (Sally) Morgan of Huyton
  • Ian Mulheirn
  • Mark Thompson
  • Dr Karin von Hippel
  • Dr Ben Warner
  • Wendy Williams

Supporting the research of the Commission will be:

You can submit written evidence to the commission: centre.commission@instituteforgovernment.org.uk.

The commissions on the IfG's Commission on the Centre of Government.

Supported by a grant from Charities Aid Foundation.

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