Throughout the election campaign, the civil service will be preparing for a potential change of government.

Drawing on the experience Sir Philip Rutnam, Chair of WA’s Advisory Board and former Whitehall Permanent Secretary; Natasha Egan-Sjodin, former Head of Ministerial Briefing at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy; and Rachel Ford, former departmental Deputy Head of External Communications and Chief Communications Officer — we explore:

• How the Civil Service prepare for the transition of power
• How new Ministers prioritise, and
• The most effective way to engage with them

MAKING THE MOVE: FROM OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT

Sir Philip Rutnam
Chair of WA’s Advisory Board

Sir Philip is a former Whitehall Permanent Secretary, senior Treasury civil servant, and European Investment Bank official.

So what really happens at the start of a new government? Who does what when – and what does the whole thing feel like?

The first thing to remember is that for politicians who may have spent years in opposition and now find themselves in government, this is a moment of peak adrenaline and exhaustion.

The second thing is that, even in a new government that has won a convincing victory, there is immediately a phase of high politics and uncertainty revolving around who gets what job.

It is usually obvious who is going to fill the most senior Cabinet jobs, but not every member of the Shadow Cabinet will necessarily find themselves in the real one or in the job they expected. And that is even more the case for Shadow Junior Ministers. There are almost always some surprises in the final list of names, depending on who has had a good or bad election, and No. 10’s decisions on party management.

The same is true for the appointment of Special Advisers and for creating a new operation in No. 10.

In short, this is a key moment for the new Prime Minister and his top team to exercise real power, as well as a big logistical exercise spanning several days.

New governments also almost always start out with lots of central control. Expect a plan for the first few months of announcements, and a tight ‘grid’ run by No. 10 to manage news coming out of departments. One of the first big real decisions will be the legislative programme for the first session. Another, shortly after, is likely to be an emergency Budget. They will have developed ideas for both in opposition, but only in government will they have access to the information needed for real decisions.

What is less predictable is how No. 10 will actually work with departments, as opposed to trying to control them. Lots of models have been tried over the years and an equal variety of different organisational models in No. 10, but none has lasted. We simply don’t know how No. 10 will operate – unlike the Treasury, which is remarkably consistent (and effective) from one government to the next. Nor do we know how far No. 10 will go in reorganising Whitehall – creating new departments or merging others, though I wouldn’t be surprised if some of Rishi Sunak’s latest changes were reversed.

What about inside departments themselves? The first thing to say is that by the time a new government arrives every department will have made a huge effort to get ready.

Across each department, teams will currently be preparing for possible change: reading manifestos carefully and preparing briefing for new Ministers. Some of this will be about specific, urgent things – if the new government wants to make big changes quickly, or there is a crisis that has to be addressed immediately. Some of it is making sure Ministers can get up to speed quickly with the breadth of their roles.

Soon however, the time for prep will be over.

New Ministers have been appointed. They arrive, excited and a bit exhausted. What happens then? The first thing is to agree how they want to spend their first week and first month. Who do they need to meet in the department and who outside? What is the right mix of urgent and important topics that needs attention? And what do they want to do to set the right tone, like any high-profile visits or events. (We take a first-hand look at how a department’s Ministerial Private Office and Communications Team tackle these questions below).

My advice to any new Minister is that the single most important thing is to be clear about priorities.

The government machine can and will swallow up all your time with ‘stuff that needs doing’. ‘Events’ will swallow up even more. The way to keep the initiative is to have a very short list of important but achievable things that you will actually make happen. Choose those things well. Make them specific enough to be tangible. Create the right relationships inside and outside the Government to help make them happen. And stay totally on top of progress.

One thing I predict should be clear within 100 days of the election is which Ministers know that this is the way to control the agenda!

OPENING THE RED BOX: BRIEFING A BRAND NEW MINISTER

Natasha Egan-Sjodin, Director

Before joining WA, Natasha was the Head of Ministerial Briefing at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

On day one of a new government the Private Office plays an essential role.

The preparatory work undertaken by the department must now be presented to new Ministers as they are announced, and sudden cast list changes to predicted Ministerial teams caused by ballot-box surprises need to be factored in.

Private secretaries, the gatekeepers of Ministerial time and preferences, must learn the new habits and priorities of their primaries and, crucially, any personal policy platforms they have championed during the election campaign.

All of this must be fed back to the Director Generals waiting to be called in for first-day briefings so that the department is on the front foot.

At the same time, personal preferences must be learnt. For some Ministers, office art needs to be changed and briefing styles need to be communicated, for others new Special Advisers need to be quickly supported to get up to speed and meet critical people within the department.

For the outside world, this is a day to let Ministers and their new teams settle in and get up to speed.

First-day congratulation letters and briefings can wait until the work of government resumes; the time to feed in to those initial meetings is before this day comes, and the new opportunity emerges as policy teams are tasked with priorities in the coming weeks.

SETTING THE NARRATIVE: SUPPORTING A NEW MINISTER’S COMMUNICATIONS PRIORITIES

Rachel Ford, Director

Before joining WA, Rachel was the Deputy Head of External Communications at the Ministry of Defence, before which she was Chief Communications Officer at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Once the standard day-one communication formalities are over – a broadcast clip of the Secretary of State entering the department, a tweet saying how ‘thrilled’ they are to be appointed, and an internal message setting out their priorities – the real work for a government communications team begins.

The Director of Communications is usually one of the first people a new Secretary of State will meet and an ‘early visits and media opportunities’ paper will always be included in the day-one pack.

This presents an opportunity for businesses, as early as possible, to feed in visit ideas and policy announcements that a new Minister can get behind.

While a Secretary of State endorsement is a top priority for most organisations, media-hungry Junior Ministers can also be a good way of getting on the radar of the new Ministerial team. And as they will be the ones working on your portfolio on a day-to-day basis, early engagement is always beneficial.

To get ahead with visit opportunities, new Ministers and their teams are usually looking for household names, strong visuals (top marks for high-vis jackets and hard hats) and easy access to London or their constituency. Partnering with or flagging nearby opportunities so they can ‘make a day of it’ works well too.

Beyond planning visits and early announcements, a government communications team must also quickly react and get used to changes in ministerial communication styles, and what they mean for departmental announcements and campaigns.

Will a Secretary of State require a videographer to attend every visit to gather content? Will prolific tweeters demand their posts are promoted on departmental social media channels (even when close to the line)? Will a laborious sign-off process delay announcements? Will Spads and Ministers respect the No. 10 grid or try to do their own thing?

While press officers will often spend the first few days and weeks running around trying to find cameras, rewrite quotes and persuade No. 10 to let their Secretary of State do a sit-down interview, businesses should also be tracking the change in departmental communication style and what it means for them.

For example, social media enthusiasts pose both a risk and an opportunity for businesses – it can mean easy, direct access to those at the top, but say something they don’t like and this opens the door for public debate.

At the same time, understanding the new No. 10 narrative and how this drives cross-government communication activity is crucial in unlocking access. In recent years there have been cross-government communication working groups dedicated to issues such as levelling up and delivering the Industrial Strategy, so understanding the cross-government drivers and aligning activity to these messages is key in getting ahead.

Finally, with the pressure on a new government to make an immediate impact, it is likely that underperforming Ministers will be moved on in an early reshuffle – bringing new priorities, new quirks and new communication styles for communications teams and businesses to adapt to.

The reality is that no two Ministers, and therefore no two Ministerial teams, are the same, but one thing always rings true in government communications: be prepared to expect the unexpected.

The first week of the Conservative Leadership contest has been dominated by policy pledges: significant personal and business tax cuts, immediate measures to address the cost of living, future spending plans and ideas on how to ‘properly’ implement Brexit. The big divergence with the last three years of government has been the major shift in focus away from Net Zero and the environment.

Proponents of the agenda within the Conservative Party have sought to fight a rearguard action over recent days with pressure on all the leading candidates to maintain the commitment. Businesses in particular have been anxious over the uncertainty, with many already heavily invested in the transition to a lower carbon future. So where are we now a week in and what’s the likely direction of travel?

The frontrunners have committed to maintaining the Net Zero by 2050 target.

At a hustings earlier this week Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt all committed to keeping the 2050 target, providing comfort to those worried about the early rhetoric from the

contest. All three have high profile advocates for climate action on their teams. Candidates are under pressure now to sign up to a series of principles from the Conservative Environment Network on climate action – so far Sunak and Tugendhat have pledged their support.

It’s worth acknowledging though the number of candidates who did raise concerns about the overall direction and pace of change, most notably Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch. This isn’t a surprise – it reflects that there’s an element of the Conservative parliamentary party concerned about the approach, ranging from sceptcisim to outright opposition. It’s a clear and helpful reminder to business though that while there’s largely been a political consensus to date over the appropriateness of pursuing Net Zero, this isn’t absolute and there’s a spectrum of opinion.

High level support doesn’t mean more granular targets won’t shift.

Macro level ambitions are one thing, but for most businesses and consumers it’s the specific policies that underpin them that matter most. The leading contenders have signed up to a high-level ambition, not to maintaining total consistency with Johnson’s plans. Business should recognise that there could be divergence on the detail, scale and timings of elements of the transition moving forwards.

Those sector targets that are already well engrained – such as the ending of the sale of new ICE vehicles by 2030 – are likely to survive. However, there will be a ‘clean slate’ of policy across many areas of government with no certainty that previous decisions will remain. For those businesses who want timeframes to be delayed allowing industry to adapt, costs to fall or new innovation to come forward, new people and a fresh start could deliver an opportunity for review.

Depending on the leader elected, expect that the need to act further on the cost of living could see the next set of ministers arguing that delaying some aspects of Net Zero – for example through a moratorium on environmental levies on bills – is necessary in the short term.

Difficult decisions are likely to be pushed even further into the long grass.  

The new PM will have approximately two years ahead of the next election. Their focus will be on developing the narrative and agenda which will allow the Conservative’s to win an historic fifth term in office. ‘Removing the barnacles from the boat’ as Lynton Crosby famously advised David Cameron by avoiding unnecessarily difficult issues and focusing only on those policy issues that appeal to the critical electoral coalition the party is focused on will likely become the big priority.

Under Johnson’s government a plethora of major decisions linked to Net Zero are either in the pipeline or have been deliberately pushed down the track, from the micro to the macro. These include – but are not limited to – how you decarbonise home heating and what incentives or legislative action are required to achieve change; how fuel duty is replaced and the timing for exploring a road pricing model; and the future of local transport, including whether and how car use is disincentivized and the policy and regulatory framework for enabling new innovation, such as e-scooters. These are all issues that are fraught with political risk – the likelihood is that on most of these issues the new leader will seek to avoid the confrontation and electoral pain rather than tackling the tough policy issues.

What does this mean for industry?

Compared to the panic amongst business and proponents for climate action less than a week ago, we now have clarity that the frontrunners are bought into the concept and overall timeframe for achieving Net Zero. Underneath this though there’s significant fluidity, with much less certainty over specific policy proposals.

This will require agility from business to quickly remake their case to government, to be flexible to the new context and the government’s priorities and motivations – potentially adapting their message to be more about energy security, jobs or regional development, and not just about decarbonisation. Net Zero is still on the agenda, but business can’t take for granted that things will continue as planned, the case will need to be remade.

The sustainability disclosure requirements (SDR), announced in July last year as part of the UK’s ambition to improve sustainable investment labeling and prevent greenwashing, were initially met with huge support from the financial industry. At last, a UK comparable to the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR), helping us to ensure that funds who claim sustainable credentials, truly have them, and a framework to guide the industry on what sustainability really looks like.

However, in the wake of delays and a lack of clarity around detail, developments around SDR have seemingly ground to a halt, with a raft of questions from the industry around what comes next. To uncover some answers, WA Communications spoke with three exceptional individuals, exploring their experience of the pending regulation and their involvement therein.

At a well-attended roundtable last week, we were joined by Andrew Death, Deputy Director for the Dept for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy;  Louisiana Salge, Senior Sustainability Specialist at EQ Investors; and James Alexander, CEO of UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association.

The main takeaway, expressed by each of our speakers, was that regulation in this area was essential, but undeniably a challenge – and one for which we’re not quite ready. EQ investors has been focused on investing impactfully and sustainably for nearly 10 years, however, Louisiana Salge highlighted that the vast majority of the asset management sector simply “aren’t there yet”. This sentiment was echoed by James Alexander, suggesting that there is an inherent lack of skills on sustainability and that we need to encourage training in this area.

Similarly, Andrew Death explained that for the SDR to be effective, we need to concentrate on what is actually feasible and deliverable. While this might not be completely perfect at the outset, it will help businesses to transition to a more sustainable framework, rather than risk a lack of engagement and compliance from the very beginning. “We need to get people on board, and then we can up the ambition”, he said, adding that there is a real opportunity for the UK to be a leader in this sector.

Of course, effective labelling to better inform the end investor is at the core of the SDR. Salge, who was part of an industry group providing feedback on this area, recommended better alignment of the labels with other terms already in existence across the financial industry. She also urged the FCA to not simply concentrate on the end output, but to ensure the labels measure the intentionality and processes employed by asset managers when considering their sustainability focus, “this should prevent against a huge amount of greenwashing,” she said.

Another of the key aspects of the SDR is its alignment to the UK ‘s Green Taxonomy. This itself is yet to be finalised, though our speakers were vocal about the importance of getting this right. Indeed, recent suggestions that the taxonomy may include natural gas as “green” have been met with dismay. Alexander, who has already written to the Government to encourage them to remove this, asserted, “for taxonomy to be genuine, it needs to be aligned to the science…natural gas is not green!”. Death, who is working closely on the reporting framework for the Green Taxonomy added that there are certainly lessons to be learnt from the EU’s taxonomy, but simultaneously recognised that the UK’s version must be rolled out quickly to allow for the SDR to be impactful.

While we await the FCA’s draft rules, mooted to be announced this month, it’s clear that there remain a number of gaps and question marks over what the SDR should look like and how it can deliver on its objectives. What’s deeply encouraging is the appetite from the industry at large to do this correctly and to drive development and investment into the right areas. As Salge pointed out, the SDR needs to be a “tool for change” to ultimately help money flow into the right places and transition the whole economy to a more sustainable future.

We do have a way to go, but based on the insight shared and the overwhelming engagement from those in the room, it looks as though the SDR, and the industry’s response to it, might really be successful.

Primary care is not currently fit for purpose

Staff capacity and morale are at an all-time low, whilst patient frustrations are at an all-time high.  This, coupled with the move toward integrated care systems (ICSs), has created an opportunity to create meaningful change that improves access to services and quality of care for all.

In response, NHS England commissioned a report to assess how newly formed ICSs and primary care could work together to improve patient care. The result was the Fuller Stocktake report, born out of a comprehensive consultation process that unpicked what works well to provide recommendations to accelerate integration in primary care.

But what does this change look like? And what will stand in its way?

What will the change look like?

The Health and Social Care Committee on Workforce has confirmed that the NHS will implement recommendations from the report, including creating Integrated Neighbourhood Care Teams (INCTs).

INCTs aim to do things differently for whole populations. These ‘teams of teams’ are designed to better support people living with long-term conditions by providing a fully integrated response across health, social care, housing, employment, benefits, and voluntary sectors. At the same time, they will be expected to cater for ordinarily healthy people who want faster access to a broader range of professionals.

Partnership lies at the heart of realising this vision, with success dependent on coordinated action. Primary Care Networks are an essential first step, but there are still barriers holding back more ambitious change.

To move forward, systems, services and clinicians need to be realistic about where they are now and tackle challenges head-on.

What is standing in the way?

The devil will be in the detail to make the vision a reality. Practical changes, effective partnerships and patient-centred design are essential steps in the process.

Firstly, practical changes to data infrastructure, estates and workforce must be made at all system levels to deliver the vision.

Although local areas should lead the charge to integrate their teams and systems, they must not be left to do so in a vacuum. Conditions must be created at a national level that enables informed decision-making locally. This means ensuring that local areas have access to the correct data, effective IT systems, and buildings that are fit for purpose. National bodies should ensure that data monitoring aligns with INCTs priorities to enable areas to understand what works and make changes in response to local needs.

At a local level, areas need to ensure that the right people are in place and that their workload is manageable.

The Royal College of General Practitioners’ response to the Fuller report said that:

“Addressing workforce and workload pressures, improving staff morale, and investing in support for change will be particularly key to achieving the report’s aspirations.”

This will be a challenge given that one in seven GP posts are currently vacant, and a third of GPs plan to leave direct patient care within the next five years. The recent Health and Social Care Committee inquiry on the future of General Practice highlighted significant variation between GP practices and the importance of learning from the ‘green shoots’ of integration across the country.  Implementing changes equitably will take time and requires full-throated Government support. Innovative ideas to support the frontline in the meantime will be essential to retain momentum and openness to doing things differently.  

Secondly, INCT partnerships must determine shared goals from the outset to ensure no one is left behind. Success will depend on ICSs supporting primary care to understand their patients from a population health perspective. Systems will be required to work together to provide a holistic model of care that promotes well–being and prevents ill health. This includes tapping into the knowledge of voluntary and community sectors skilled at working at the interface of clinical and social care and having unique insights into patients’ needs on the ground.  

Finally, services must be designed around a positive patient experience to improve quality of care.  The report recommends the creation of a care pathway that simultaneously provides personalised care for those with long-term conditions and streamlines access to care for normally healthy people. This is no mean feat.  To reduce the risk of this becoming an exercise of moving the deckchairs, patients should be involved in service and pathway re-design, and experts should be enlisted to make this happen. Done well, this represents an opportunity to create more sustainable services grounded in patient satisfaction.

Making the vision a reality

‘But it’s clear, isn’t it, the current model of general practice isn’t working as well as it could. That’s why I commissioned Claire Fuller to do a stocktake,…Claire did a very impressive job, but it’s now our job – mine and yours – to take that forward.’ Amanda Pritchard speech to NHS ConfedExpo 2022 Conference 

The Fuller report offers a much–needed and realistic solution as long as we welcome the change. All that remains is creating the right culture and conditions to deliver it. 

What’s happening in health inequalities?

Health inequalities vastly pre-date the pandemic, but evidence demonstrating that a person’s postcode or ethnicity could be a determinant of COVID-19 outcomes has combined with a wider focus on societal inequality – and Levelling Up – to create renewed policy attention.

It is a complex and deep-rooted challenge to reduce health disparities across the country. WA recently produced a The Health Inequalities Policy Map, to explore some of the different policy levers and influencers shaping the landscape: some are explored in more detail here.

NHS reforms can create change – but are not without challenges

The Health and Care Act passed in April, establishing long-awaited NHS system reforms to formalise Integrated Care Systems (ICSs). Included in the legislation was a statutory duty for Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) to reduce health inequalities.

ICSs have responsibility for larger geographical areas than their predecessor CCGs. This means that they may have greater success in taking a population health perspective that can drive improvements to health inequalities, and the introduction of NHS England’s CORE20PLUS5 approach provides a supportive framework for ICSs to refine their thinking.

ICBs bring together health, public health, and other partners to organise provision of care. That should mean that services can be better designed to respond to the needs of the population, creating an ideal environment for supporting communities experiencing health inequalities.

However, there are also likely to be challenges.  ICSs are under enormous pressure to address immediate and pressing local challenges, including waiting list backlogs, overstretched emergency care and workforce crunches. Longer-term issues like health inequalities require time, capacity and holistic approaches, and can easily be deprioritised, particularly if there are not incentives in place to drive action.

Technology can only help to reduce disparities if designed carefully

Digital technologies have the potential to reduce burdens on the NHS workforce through automation and artificial intelligence, freeing up staff resources and establishing uniform processes.

But health tech must be designed so that it does not perpetuate existing inequalities. Much has been discussed about lower access or confidence in digital tools for different cohorts, such as older people or those with lower digital literacy. The newly re-integrated digital teams in NHS England will need a clear focus on how tech can enhance outcomes for all communities, not just the lowest hanging fruit.

There are also more complex barriers that need to be addressed, as demonstrated by an example in skin cancer diagnosis.

The creation of an algorithm to diagnose skin cancer was a significant achievement. However, in the paper announcing the algorithm, the examples of images used in the build process did not show diverse ethnicities[i]. This led to concerns that an automated diagnostic tool could actually lead to worse outcomes for different ethnic cohorts.

What is the Government planning to do next?

With a White Paper on Health Disparities due, a Health Secretary committed to tackling “the disease of disparity”, and a new Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, the Government has shown its commitment to resolving health inequalities. They were elected in 2019 on a manifesto which promised to “Level Up” the country.

But when the Levelling Up White Paper was published earlier this year, it was clear that the economic impact of the pandemic has had a significant impact on the Government’s ability to deliver their agenda, and the subsequent budget further underlined the narrow focus on reinvigorating the economy. As the cost-of-living crisis grows, it’s difficult to imagine that the Health Disparities White Paper will be supported by the kind of long-term funding commitment needed from the very top to make a real difference on the ground.

With many avenues and levers for change, there could be huge potential to make a meaningful difference in health inequalities; but without careful planning to overcome challenges, renewed policy attention and NHS reforms could prove a wasted opportunity.

[i] Esteva A, Kuprel B, Novoa RA, Ko J, Swetter SM, Blau HM, Thrun S. Dermatologist-level classification of skin cancer with deep neural networks. Nature. 2017 Feb 2;542(7639):115-118, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28117445/

Boris Johnson stands at the edge of the precipice, his fate in the hands of parliamentary colleagues, many of whom see him as an electoral liability. It is a stark contrast to the aftermath of his 2019 electoral triumph which saw him become the most powerful sitting Prime Minister since Tony Blair. It is now very unlikely he will lead the Party into the next election.

But as Westminster awaits the publication of Sue Gray’s report, exactly how and when might his fate will be sealed remains unclear. So what are the possible scenarios, and what do they mean for organisations seeking to engage with political stakeholders?

Scenario 1: Sue Gray’s report delivers a killer blow

What happens in this scenario?

The contents of Sue Gray’s report are sufficient to trigger the critical threshold of 54 Conservative MPs delivering letters of no confidence to Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee Chair, and the Prime Minister loses the subsequent confidence motion. In this scenario a Conservative leadership election will commence with Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss the clear front-runners.

What does this mean for policy development and political engagement?

All formal Government policy processes will be put on hold pending review by the new Prime Minister and a newly assembled Cabinet. In many areas there will likely be consistency, albeit after a delay of some weeks/months. But there are clearly opportunities for business to seek changes of direction or emphasis in a number of areas under a new administration.

New faces will rise to positions of power and influence within the government. It will be important to quickly engage with new ministers and advisers, and ensure you have a broad base of advocates within the Party. Any policy agendas that were not explicitly backed in the last manifesto will be most subject to change and there will be an opportunity for a new leader to row back on anything controversial, such as the planned National Insurance increase.

However, the core challenges filling the new Prime Minister’s in-tray will remain the same: tackling the cost of living crisis, decarbonisation, post-Covid economic recovery and defending ‘Red Wall’ seats in the Midlands and the North.

Scenario 2: MPs attempt to wield the knife but the Prime Minister clings to power

What happens in this scenario?

As in scenario 1, Sue Gray’s report triggers the necessary 54 no confidence letters but the Prime Minister manages to win the subsequent no confidence vote. Under current Party rules, a formal leadership challenge using this mechanism could not be triggered for another twelve months. The Prime Minister’s authority would still be severely damaged but his administration would limp on.

While his team would attempt to present the leadership issue as having been resolved, Theresa May’s experience showed that the danger would still remain. A poor performance at the local elections in May or inability to pass a significant piece of legislation could still trigger another crisis, albeit with less clarity over the mechanism to remove him.

What does this mean for policy development and political engagement?

In this scenario, policy development and delivery of key Government priorities could be slowed down or changed in any area that is remotely controversial given the Prime Minister’s diminished political capital. The Cabinet would become stronger and backbench Conservative MPs would be emboldened to press their own agendas. Whereas before almost all policy was ultimately dictated by and decided in No 10, there will be much more opportunity to influence policy via a wider set of stakeholders.

Controversial issues such as the National Insurance increase will become much harder to push through and the Government’s overall direction will increasingly be subject to influence from the various factions on the Conservative backbenches. For example, No 10 will be under severe pressure from backbenchers to take a more interventionist approach to tackling the cost of living crisis, with energy bills the next high profile lightning rod. Furthermore, there will be a significant shake-up of personnel in No 10 – officials and advisors – in an attempt to draw a line under recent events and move on.

However, uncertainty will continue to hang over the future of the Prime Minister with potential candidates to replace him continuing to cautiously prepare for the day when the ball might “come loose at the back of the scrum”. This all means it will be important to factor in a broader, more diffuse range of stakeholders who can influence policy when conducting engagement campaigns.

Scenario 3: MPs keep their powder dry a little longer

What happens in this scenario?

The Sue Gray report comes and goes without seeing 54 letters submitted to Graham Brady. The Prime Minister is damaged, embarrassed and forced to refresh the Number 10 team but his Government limps on. This is similar to scenario 2 but his authority is in some ways even more diminished with the threat of a confidence vote constantly hanging over his administration. Every political challenge in the coming months is viewed through the prism of Johnson’s leadership and every mis-step could prove his last. The May elections and any big tests in Parliament will take on added significance.

What does this mean for policy development and political engagement?

This would look and feel very similar to scenario 2 but with a greater sense of the Prime Minister living on borrowed time. Every major political and policy challenge would be viewed through the prism of whether it could trigger 54 letters and the bleed of power from No 10 to Cabinet members and backbenchers would be even more pronounced. All eyes would be on the potential leadership candidates to see how any comment or pronouncement would indicate a shift in policy.

The local elections in May would be framed as a de-facto referendum on the Prime Minister’s leadership and his policy agenda would face challenge at every turn. Broadening out the stakeholders you engage will still be critical as you will need to demonstrate that any change is backed by as many factions and influencers as possible. There will also be more opportunities to slow down or amend any policies that could attract the ire of mutinous Conservative MPs.

In all scenarios, we are about to enter a new, less predictable political phase in Westminster. The landscape of decision makers and influencers looks drastically different to that of twelve months ago and anyone seeking to influence change will need to navigate it with care.