In order to successfully prosecute his government’s programme, Keir Starmer needs to accelerate his revamp of the Whitehall machine and establish a Department for the Prime Minister. This is the central recommendation from In Power 01: Transforming Downing Street, the culmination of an in-depth investigation into the centre of UK government by The Future Governance Forum (FGF), published today.
Successive administrations have failed to exercise their power effectively, contributing to historically low levels of public trust that present a potentially existential challenge for politicians and the public administrators that serve them. If the Prime Minister and his team can’t fix the state to make it work, they’re in danger of holding the door open for those who would tear it down altogether.
In Power 01: Transforming Downing Street sets out how they might rise to this challenge. FGF’s investigation has been led by its Chair (and former Deputy Cabinet Secretary) Helen MacNamara and its Executive Director (and former Director of campaigning groups Progressive Britain and Labour to Win) Nathan Yeowell, bringing together decades of high-level civil service and political expertise. Their central recommendation is that the Prime Minister needs to have one cohesive organisation reporting to him: a proper, dedicated Department for the Prime Minister known as ‘Downing Street’. The UK is an international outlier for not having anything like this in place: comparable systems, like those in Australia, Canada and Sweden all have dedicated departments serving their respective prime ministers.
This new department should be built around four specific functions:
- Politics and Strategy Group: to incubate fresh thinking about some of the thorniest challenges facing the country and the overarching long-term agenda of the government; and to devise and develop practical strategies to tackle these challenges.
- Policy and Delivery Group: to drive and enforce the agenda of the Prime Minister across Whitehall – gripping government business, coordinating activity across departments, monitoring implementation of key policies and trouble-shooting where necessary.
- Diplomatic and Security Group: to support the Prime Minister in his personal leadership of international, European and security issues.
- Prime Minister’s Office: to act as the authoritative voice of the Prime Minister in Whitehall, with the Private Office operating at its most effective, and clear lanes to optimise for the best Prime Ministerial decision-making.
These four groups would be supported by a cross-cutting Communications Team and Political Office.
Alongside these structural changes, the report recommends a cultural reset at the heart of government: to be more open, face out to the rest of Whitehall and the country, and have its own recruitment and management policies to get the best talent from the country working in Downing Street.
The publication of the report comes after the Prime Minister began to make changes to his No.10 operation at the start of September, in line with other key FGF recommendations, including a dedicated Downing Street Minister in the shape of the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, and bringing into No.10 the delivery functions which previously sat in Cabinet Office and integrating them with the Policy Unit. In Power 01: Transforming Downing Street proposes the practical details – the processes, structures and cultural changes – he needs to implement if those new appointments are to be given the best possible chance of succeeding. As part of its investigation, FGF has spoken to over 100 expert contributors since the beginning of 2025, including those working, or have worked, in No.10, Cabinet Office, local government and leaders of high-performing organisations outside of government.
Nathan Yeowell, Executive Director of The Future Governance Forum, said:
“Keir Starmer has committed his government to the task of patriotic renewal. But the system he inherited is simply not set up to deliver that. For years now, the centre of the UK government has hindered, not helped, prime ministers to achieve their political programmes.
What’s needed is a proper overhaul of the state, starting at the very centre. Keir Starmer needs a modern Department for the Prime Minister, equipped with the powers and teams he needs to hand – just as his counterparts in countries such as Australia and Canada have.
Trust in government is at rock bottom. With the changes he’s started to make, the Prime Minister shows he gets this – our recommendations set out what needs to come next if he is to renew the nation and restore people’s faith in the power of government to do good.”
FGF’s mission is to reform the state to renew the nation. It is a think tank established in 2023 to advance new approaches to progressive policymaking and delivery, with a focus spanning national, devolved, regional, and local government. FGF is more than a traditional think tank, concentrating on the how as much as the what of policy design and implementation. Through its research and convening power – the forum at the heart of the project – FGF not only develops new ideas, but tests and iterates them in practice.
The project also had an expert advisory group, which included the following people, as well as experts with senior civil service experience within No.10 and the Cabinet Office:
- Amber de Botton, Director of Communications at No.10 (2022-23); former ITV and Sky News journalist; currently Chief Communications Officer at the Guardian Media Group.
- Peter Hill, Principal Private Secretary to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister’s Sherpa for the G7 and G20 (2017-19); CEO of COP26.
- Polly Mackenzie, Director of Policy to the Deputy Prime Minister (2010-15); Chief Executive of Demos (2018-22); Chief Social Purpose Officer at UAL (2022-25).
- James Purnell, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister (1997-2001); Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport (2007-08) and Work and Pensions (2008-09); former Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Arts London; currently CEO of Flint Global.
- Jenny Rowlands, public servant, most recently Chief Executive of Camden Council
- Jon Stokes, clinical psychologist and Associate Scholar at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, specialising in leadership and executive coaching; former Associate Fellow of the Institute for Government and Founding Director of Tavistock Consulting.
The new Downing Street operation would be a separate department, with its own budget and headcount. It would be run by a Downing Street leadership team, comprising the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Principal Private Secretary, Director of Communications, National Security Adviser, Chief Strategy and Politics Adviser, Chief Policy and Delivery Adviser and a new post of Chief Operating Officer. These proposals do not require legislative change nor additional costs, and are designed to be implemented quickly so change can begin immediately.
The conclusions of this paper are FGF’s, and not the views of the advisory group or any of the individuals we spoke to for the project.
