Cabinet Office
The Cabinet Office forms part of the centre of government, alongside 10 Downing Street and the Treasury. But what does it do?
What is the Cabinet Office?
The Cabinet Office forms part of the centre of government, alongside 10 Downing Street and the Treasury. Its head office is at 70 Whitehall, next door to Downing Street. There are also Cabinet Office teams based across Westminster, with some elsewhere in London and around the country.
The Cabinet Office was established in 1916, when the cabinet secretariat was created. Its core function reflects those origins: supporting the prime minister and the cabinet in co-ordinating and agreeing collective policy decisions and the running of cabinet and cabinet committee meetings. It now plays a role in implementing high priority policies, especially ones spanning multiple departments, and it also houses many of the government’s corporate teams working on civil service reform, human resources and various corporate functions. Since 1957, intelligence and national security functions have sat in the Cabinet Office.
The Cabinet Office’s core role – hosting the cabinet secretariat – has remained constant, but successive prime ministers have changed its structure to suit their policy priorities, leadership style and political context, often bringing in new units or renaming existing ones. This makes for a complicated and constantly changing organisation, in which it can be difficult to trace lines of accountability or see where decisions are made.
Who is in charge of the Cabinet Office?
The prime minister is the highest-ranking minister within the Cabinet Office, and is ultimately responsible for its activity.
In practice, however, another cabinet minister is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operation of the department. Sometimes this has been the minister for the Cabinet Office. For example, Francis Maude held this post from 2010 to 2015 (the longest serving holder of that office this century) and, as the department’s senior minister, was best known for overseeing a programme of civil service reform.
More recently, day-to-day ministerial responsibility over the Cabinet Office has tended to lie with the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The current occupant, Pat McFadden, is charged with supporting the delivery of the government’s priorities (as outlined in its missions) and has oversight of all Cabinet Office policy. His brief also covers propriety and ethics, public appointments and national security.
The current minister for the Cabinet Office is Nick Thomas-Symonds, who is junior to McFadden. He is responsible for inquiries policy, the constitution, and House of Lords reform. Unlike some of his recent predecessors, he is also in charge of EU policy and relations, a brief only moved (back) to the Cabinet Office via a machinery of government change following Labour’s 2024 general election victory.
In the past, the roles of minister for the Cabinet Office and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster have also sometimes been held simultaneously – such as by Michael Gove (2020-21), David Lidington (2018-19), Ed Miliband (2007-2008).
In the coalition government, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, was based in the Cabinet Office. He was responsible for the constitution but did not lead on other departmental issues, though as leader of the Liberal Democrats his remit stretched across government and he chaired the Home Affairs Cabinet Committee.
Who are the most senior civil servants in the department?
The civil servants who lead the administrative side of the Cabinet Office are the most senior in the civil service, including the cabinet secretary and the chief operating officer for the civil service.
The cabinet secretary is responsible for leading the cabinet secretariats, advising the prime minister on major government issues and organising meetings and advising the chairs of Cabinet and cabinet committees. Simon Case was appointed as cabinet secretary in September 2020, and, as of October 2024, has announced his forthcoming departure.
Cat Little is the government’s chief operating officer and permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office. Her role focuses on the running of the whole of the department, especially its function as the corporate centre of the civil service. Little leads on the reform of the civil service and its cross-cutting corporate functions like project management, commercial services, finance and communications.
Which other ministers are in the Cabinet Office?
Other ministers based in the Cabinet Office reflect its variety of functions. Some ministers may be given the task of looking at a specific priority area represented in the Cabinet Office. There are ministers who work on policy, including:
- Georgia Gould, parliamentary secretary (public sector reform, government functions oversight, Cabinet Office planning and performance and public bodies)
- Abena Oppong-Asare, parliamentary secretary (national security, civil contingencies, transparency policy, inquiries policy and constitution)
Other ministers are central to the running of the government and are based in the Cabinet Office because their offices do not fit neatly in any other department. These ministers include:
- Lucy Powell, leader of the House of Commons
- Baroness Smith, leader of the House of Lords
- Lord Collins, deputy leader of the House of Lords
There are also ministers who have a role relating to a political party. For example, Ellie Reeves is currently minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office and the Labour Party chair.
How does the Cabinet Office work with Number 10?
No. 10 is technically part of the Cabinet Office, but in practice the two are organisationally distinct. No. 10 supports the prime minister in his or her duties as the head of the government, head of the party and in their diplomatic and parliamentary role. It is staffed by permanent civil servants and special advisers, and includes the prime minister’s private office, a policy unit, and the logistical and practical teams to run the prime minister’s life. Other support functions, like delivery or strategy units, have moved backwards and forwards between No. 10 and the Cabinet Office over the years.
There is a “link door” between the back of 70 Whitehall and 10 Downing Street and access passes are highly prized by Cabinet Office staff.
What are the Cabinet Office’s different functions?
- Collective decision making and dispute resolution
The primary role of the Cabinet Office is to facilitate collective decision making – whether within the cabinet or cabinet committees. These meetings resolve disputes between departments, build consensus on policies and help to bind ministers into the convention of collective responsibility. This core function is organised by the Cabinet Secretariat, which supports the prime minister and other committee chairs.
The secretariat will produce an agenda for the meetings, write minutes and make sure actions are noted and acted on. Cabinet Office officials also help to broker decisions, anticipating disagreements and working with senior ministers on solutions to the government’s significant and cross-cutting policy issues.
Often, there are multiple secretariats each serving the different chairs of the cabinet committees. Until 2016 the major secretariats included:
- Economic and Domestic Secretariat (including the Parliamentary Business and Legislation Secretariat, the main team supporting the leaders of the House of Commons and Lords)
- National Security Secretariat and the Civil Contingencies Secretariat
- European and Global Issues Secretariat
In recent years there have been various configurations of these secretariats. For example, Theresa May disbanded the European and Global Issues Secretariat and folded it into the Department for Exiting the European Union. Following the 2024 election, however, and Labour’s decision to return responsibility for European affairs to the Cabinet Office, a version of this secretariat has been re-created.
Separate from the Cabinet Office secretariats is the Propriety and Constitution team, formerly known as the Propriety and Ethics team. Led by a Director General, its duties include supporting the prime minister and cabinet secretary when they need to take decisions about complaints or concerns about individuals’ behaviour under the Ministerial or Civil Service codes.
- Policy delivery
The Cabinet Office has at times housed units focused on the delivery of high profile government policies and projects.
In 2001, the New Labour government created a delivery unit specifically to work on policy delivery, and most prime ministers since have used a team in No. 10 or the Cabinet Office to keep a central function to advise them on the implementation of government policies. The current government’s ‘Mission Delivery Unit’ is based in the Cabinet Office.
- Strategy and policy development
The majority of government policy work happens within individual departments. This can make co-ordination and collaboration between departments difficult. Prime ministers have dealt with this by setting up units in the centre of government which focus on long term strategy or which undertake long term policy development. These have sometimes sat in the Cabinet Office or in No. 10. They are usually made up of a mix of civil servants and special advisers, and can use outside expertise. Bodies which aim to bring new research or ways of working to bear on policy problems are also involved, with David Cameron setting up the Behavioural Insights Team.
The Cabinet Office is often a home for teams working on specific time-limited issues that directly reflect the prime minister’s priorities. For example, Tony Blair established the Social Exclusion Unit and Theresa May set up the Race Disparity Unit.
There are also a number of standing policy teams that reflect current or historical ministerial interests. The largest of these is the Constitution Group that moved into the Cabinet Office from the Ministry of Justice when Nick Clegg became deputy prime minister.
- Corporate functions
The Cabinet Office is also a corporate centre for the civil service: its cross-cutting functions, management and reform.
Corporate teams that are housed in the Cabinet Office include:
- the Infrastructure and Projects Authority, which brings together project management expertise to support the delivery of some of government’s major projects.
- the Crown Commercial Service, which leads on procurement policy and supports the procurement of goods and services for the civil service and wider public sector.
- the Civil Service Commission, which regulates recruitment and ensures appointments are made on merit.
- the ‘corporate centre’ of the Government Communications Service
- functions like civil service human resources, where cross-cutting matters are led from the Cabinet Office, but have been largely managed within individual departments.
- Intelligence and Security
Since 1957, the Cabinet Office has housed the Joint Intelligence Committee and Assessments Staff. These analyse and consolidate intelligence findings from across the various agencies that undertake intelligence analysis. From the early 2000s the Cabinet Office has also had some formal responsibility for national security. Since 2010 it has housed the National Security Secretariat, which supports the National Security Council.
- Emergency Response
The structures through which the government responds to serious crises are based in the Cabinet Office. The Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS) sits within the Cabinet Office. During a significant crisis the CCS supports the Civil Contingencies Committee (COBR) and is responsible for co-ordinating the departments and agencies that are involved in the response.
CCS ensures that decision makers have access to comprehensive, accurate and up to date information. This includes advice fed in by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). CCS and SAGE have been central to the government’s decision making and response to the coronavirus pandemic, especially during the first stages of the pandemic.
How should the Cabinet Office change?
In Power with purpose, the IfG’s Commission on the Centre of Government diagnosed a series of problems with the ‘centre’ – No.10, the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury. It argued the Cabinet Office was an increasingly incoherent department with no clear sense of purpose, and too frequently duplicated or confused work that was happening either in No.10 or line departments.
To address some of these problems, the Commission recommended that No.10 and the Cabinet Office should be restructured into a Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC), better setting the government’s strategic direction and bolstering the support offered to the prime minister, and a Department for the Civil Service (DCS), responsible for policy on the civil service. This would improve the prime minister’s ability to set whole-government direction, while ensuring the civil service received more effective, dedicated leadership.
If those machinery of government changes do not happen, the IfG also has suggestions that would streamline and improve the way the Cabinet Office works. These include strengthening the prime minister’s hand by giving the Cabinet Office responsibility for brokering a programme for government; increasing its responsibility for delivering cross-cutting programmes like Net Zero; housing a powerful implementation unit within it; and giving the cabinet secretary and chief operating officer more responsibility for running the civil service.