Burnham’s OPMC creation follows IfG’s Commission on the Centre of Government recommendations

Commenting on the announcement, Hannah White said:

“This is excellent news. Finally, an incoming prime minister has accepted the fundamental weaknesses of the centre and is implementing the reforms called for by the Institute for Government.”

In 2024, the final report of the IfG’s Centre Commission described No10 as:

“...underpowered but compulsively involved in detail, with ambiguous structures that undermine the clarity of instruction from the prime minister and encourage in-fighting. There is an inward-looking bunker mentality, too closed to the external expertise and outside perspectives that are necessary to make the best decisions. The centre has become disconnected from the lives of the citizens on whose behalf it works.”

In its assessment of the Cabinet Office, the commission concluded:

“The Cabinet Office, founded to serve cabinet and its committees, has become bloated and unfocused. Despite the talent of many of its people, it is failing in its core role of supporting the prime minister and cabinet.”

The Centre Commission’s solution to a problem which had frustrated successive prime ministers was the overhaul of the centre of government now being undertaken by Andy Burnham. It recommended that:

“The Cabinet Office and No.10 should be restructured into a Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and a separate Department for the Civil Service. The prime minister is the executive leader of the government and should be supported as such. It is also time to recognise that treating the Cabinet Office as a separate department is a convenient fiction that obscures more than it clarifies.”

“The DPMC will set the direction of the government and bolster the direct, strategic support for the prime minister. A stronger, more strategic DPMC will be better able to devolve and decentralise policy to other departments, public bodies and tiers of government. For the centre to operate effectively, functions that can be managed by the rest of government, and by those outside government, should be delegated elsewhere. A more strategic centre would only do the things it could add value by doing, supporting delivery and maintaining oversight without getting in the way.”

Reacting to today’s announcement on the OPMC, IfG CEO Hannah White said:

“It is excellent news that the Burnham government has adopted the recommendations of our Commission on the Centre of Government. Finally, an incoming prime minister has accepted the fundamental weaknesses of the centre and is implementing the reforms called for by the Institute for Government.”

“This a long overdue restructuring of this country’s dysfunctional centre of government. Sorting out No10 and the Cabinet Office is rightly a first order priority for the prime minister. His new team will find that a strengthened Department for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet will be much better placed to support the government’s devolution plans and to harness the power of the Treasury to Burnham’s agenda.”

Read the full IfG report here: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/commission-centre-government