ABSTRACT
Overseas observers marvel that the Prime Minister’s office has only fifty administrative staff and the same number of clerical and typing assistants. This is smaller than any other leading country: the figure runs up to 500 in Germany and 5,000 in France. No. 10 boasts only a small private office supplemented by occasional special advisers and, since 1974, a policy unit of up to fifteen staff. The slenderness of these arrangements is based on the realistic assumption that the Prime Minister’s primary adviser on any issue will be the minister handling it, who runs the policy and has the expertise and data at his disposal. The drawback, as described by Lord Hunt, Cabinet Secretary from 1973 to 1979, is that ministerial advice is ‘advice from one point of view only-and one which is inevitably more concerned with the particular problems of the department concerned than with the government’s overall strategy’ (Hunt 1983). But if the Prime Minister feels dissatisfied with the approach, or wants to explore other options, he can effectively be blocked by an uncooperative departmental minister. As a frustrated Wilson complained in 1967: ‘I’m sick of asking for this or that suggestion to be followed up only to have Michael or Jim’s officials report back three weeks later that nothing could be done’ (Castle 1980).
