Mission Led Government: The master key to open the door to transformational change

First published on Labour List, 16th July 2024 - HERE

The way government works could be in for a long overdue shake up. Following Labour’s historic victory, it’s reported that five “mission boards”, chaired by the PM himself,  will be set up to deliver Labour’s five missions across Whitehall departments. This could quietly prove to be the master key that unlocks effective, efficient government and delivers transformational change.

Change is certainly overdue. For anyone who has built and led a business, Whitehall can look very odd. Dysfunctional even.

Imagine running a company as our government is run: with twenty-four major departments whose roles are dictated by tradition, precedent and sometimes the simple pursuit of political advantage.

Imagine each headed by a powerful, noisy, often self-publicising director incentivised to deliver only within their own brief, squabbling for resources and status. Each reliant on their outsourced COO to do the doing, but whose team (The Civil Service) operates under a different set of goals, incentives and culture. 

Imagine that every one of the company’s true challenges spanned many departments  and with all the company’s small, often activist, shareholders getting daily updates on your progress, or failure.

Then imagine getting anything done.

There are plenty of silo-ed and badly run companies of course. But it’s hard to think that if you wanted results, you’d start with the Whitehall system.

As founder and one-time, long-time, CEO of Ella’s Kitchen, Britain's biggest baby food brand - and a mission-led business itself, I know what a dystopian picture we have just painted.  And that’s why, for me, Labour’s understanding that mission led government can deliver, AND that this requires an overhaul of the way government works, is so uplifting.

Those of us campaigning for change to improve children’s lives have seen the consequences of the way the existing Whitehall system is set up to fail. As many charities have pointed out, nearly every single  department, tier of government and public service has a stake in children’s policy.

If you’re counting, in Whitehall alone, as a minimum, DfE, DCMS, MHCLG, DWP, HMT, DHSC and the Home Office all play a role.

And together, collaboratively, they’ve failed. Look at decisions made on school funding, on early years provision and food standards for many years, and ask yourself if that’s what success looks like.

The UK has long since signed up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It says: “The best interests of the child must be a top priority in all decisions and actions that affect children.” The principle has been disregarded too often.

A Prime Minister’s personal leadership can cut through these barriers of course, but any PM can only have so many priorities. It shouldn’t take their personal advocacy, or a crisis, or a noisy campaign to get things done.

Labour’s Opportunity Mission spans education, child poverty and housing, childcare and the arts. It could finally cut through the Whitehall knot, perhaps even more effectively than the last Labour government’s Children, Schools and Families department.

The party will need to be bold though.

Just as in business, the Missions will need clear delivery plans. There should be regular appraisal points at which Mission leaders are held to account for their performance by the PM. They need clear and public performance metrics that reflect true progress, not the most effective content for a press release. And they need both proper collaboration and convergent goals with their colleagues, and proper governance with external challenge from non-executive directors appointed to each mission – including voices from outside Whitehall.

Everyone involved will have to be ready to sacrifice short term political wins for long term change.

Alongside our hard-working, driven civil servants this system could really deliver.

I’ve long argued for a National Children’s Service to cohere public policy in the interest of future generations. The potential change to a true Mission-led government could help achieve that. But we must get the details right.  It is here that Labour, as a pro-business party, can take a leaf out of the mission-led businesses book, and set themselves up for success.

The new system must work and not get captured by old structures and ways of working. The challenge could not be more urgent. Now the party is back in government, Labour has one chance to truly make the most of their mandate and time in office: one chance to seize an opportunity handed to the party by voters.

These structures really matter, and Labour’s recognition that they matter, really matters too.  It shows competence and commitment. Mission Boards could be the key to unlock the transformation that governmental structures and cultures so obviously need.  It’s time to get that master key cut.