Brexit – ‘crafting strategy’ instead of rigidity or chaos

Concern is mounting both in the UK and in Europe about what seems to be a lack of clarity concerning the UK’s plans for leaving the European Union (EU). This concern is well illustrated by the Italian Economics Minister, who commented recently that: “Somebody needs to tell us something, and it needs to be something that makes sense”. The Confederation of British Industry has also now joined in calls for the government to put forward a clear plan, in order to avoid “further crippling uncertainty”.

The government has insisted that a coherent approach is being devised, but that details cannot be shared in advance of the negotiations. Yet some senior officials have indicated that there isn’t yet a clear plan, and this seems to be backed up by a leaked report, albeit disowned by the government, which indicates that Whitehall is struggling to cope, that there are splits between Ministers and that large numbers of additional civil servants need to be drafted in.

There are of course a number of valid reasons for the government to be wary about sharing a plan:

·   First, the breadth and scope of the issues, and the sheer volume of intricate detail involved, indicates that a period of careful analysis is certainly needed. There are sound arguments for taking good time over this initial analysis stage, although some might argue that five months has already provided a reasonable initial window.

·   Secondly, it could be argued that the government should be careful not to show its hand within the EU in advance of the start of formal negotiations, so as not to weaken its position. This stance is itself weakened though by the extent to which initial pronouncements by the Prime Minister, about the importance of prioritising immigration control, are now shaping the positions that are being taken vis-à-vis Brexit from within the EU.

·   A third, and potentially weighty, reason for the government to be cautious about setting out its stall is that the Prime Minister will know that any indications of the government’s formal position is open to political attack internally, not least from within her own party, which has been described as a ticking time bomb in relation to Brexit. Continuing reports of splits on the strategy for Brexit between key Ministers underline the scope for internal political turmoil.

So, on the face of it there are plausible justifications, linked to careful analysis, negotiating tactics and internal political pressures, for the government to be wary about showing its hand. However, it is possible that the current situation is in danger of delivering the worst of all worlds. On the one hand, there is a deliberate refusal to set out a ‘plan’, which is being presented as a negotiating tactic and yet is leading to claims about uncertainty and confusion. On the other hand, the government has in fact indicated some sticking points – such as the absolute necessity of being able to limit free movement – which are setting off a chain of comments and reactions within the EU and so possibly limiting the government’s room for manoeuvre.

Since the words ‘strategy’ and ‘plan’ are being so frequently used in connection with Brexit, what insights does theory about strategic planning and management in the public domain provide for interpreting this confusing situation?

Informed by work on complexity theory, current thinking in this field highlights the benefits of an ‘emergent’ approach to strategic management. Within this perspective, carefully prescribed, formal plans that commit organisations and governments some way into the future are increasingly being seen as too rigid and inflexible for an environment of uncertainty and change. This type of thinking points to a more ’emergent’ style of planning in which flexibility, responsiveness and improvisation are the order of the day. Recent statements by the Prime Minster seem to take this tack, suggesting for example that the UK needs to “adapt to the moment and evolve its thinking”, in response to anti-globalisation and protectionist rhetoric from the US President-elect Trump. Indeed, some in the government may be hoping that the seismic-scale discontinuity caused by Trump’s election may create openings for negotiation in Europe that weren’t there before.

Recent thinking about strategic planning also suggests, though, that a wholly emergent approach is highly risky: without a sense of overall direction, it is all too easy for clarity to be replaced by confusion and a lack of coordination. As Rose and Cray (2010, p. 456) put it, in their exploration of strategy formulation in the public domain, “the lack of a shared plan can give rise to confusion, wasted resources and internal conflicts” – all of which seem to be clear risks in the current situation. They point to the value of a two-part, ‘hybrid’ process, in which a strategic framework sets out parameters and goals, articulated in sufficient detail to provide a guide for action, whilst retaining flexibility to respond to the changing environment.

Achieving this balance between clarity and flexibility is of course a hugely demanding and quite subtle task, calling for attention to the process of crafting strategy as a skill in its own right. Alongside all the current demands for ‘hard’ skills in Whitehall in areas such as trade negotiations, it is just as important that this ‘meta-skill’ gets the attention that it deserves. As the Institute for Government put it back in September, “when it comes to Brexit, silence is not a strategy”.

Ellen Roberts – follow me on Twitter

Rose, W. and Cray, D. (2010) ‘Public-sector strategy formulation’, Canadian Public Administration, Vol. 53, No. 4, pp.453-466.

Implementing Brexit: Challenges for the Civil Service

In these early weeks after the UK’s ‘Brexit’ decision, most of the attention has understandably been focused on the chaotically unfolding political scene. Beneath these swirling mists, however, discussions are beginning to surface about the role and importance of the civil service in implementing this historic decision. This huge task – of working out how this agenda is going to be implemented and then putting in place the means to achieve it – has been made even more intriguing and urgent by  the fact that the civil service was apparently expressly instructed not to embark on contingency planning to prepare for the outcome of the referendum.

Against this turbulent background it will be vital that the next steps are “clear, honest and considered” as Rob Whiteman, Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, has noted.

What, then, are the key challenges that the civil service will face?

First, there is the structural issue of working out who will do this work, and in what relationship with the rest of the government machinery. A new central unit, located in the Cabinet Office, is now established to lead the work involved in withdrawal, but questions to consider here will include to what extent this unit will be undertaking some of the heavy lifting itself, or undertaking more of a coordinating role across departments. This will in turn help to shape where resources are targeted.

Secondly, there will be an issue of ensuring that the necessary skills are in place, and particularly with respect to negotiation and contract management skills. There is a long-standing concern, voiced by the NAO (2014) among others, about the extent to which Whitehall is equipped in this respect. As the former Permanent Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office put it very recently in the context of Brexit: "I doubt there are more than between a dozen and 20 serving British officials who have real experience of trade negotiations."

Alongside these issues of structures and skills, though, ways of working are likely to be just as important. As Melanie Dawes, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Communities and Local Government, pointed out at a recent Institute for Government seminar about the implications of Brexit for Whitehall, we now need a collective approach in which resources and skills are shared across departments. Yet the history of Whitehall demonstrates the strength of the pull in precisely the opposite direction, with the culture of departmental competition for resources firmly embedded in the DNA.  Now is the time to make a collaborative approach a reality, however hard that may be. Lessons about collaborative partnership working seem useful here, including the importance of setting a framework for the management of governance, for performance measurement, for escalation and for communication.

Then there are the leadership skills to drive this work forward. Political leadership will of course be fundamental. For leaders within Whitehall, though, there will also be a host of challenges. One such will be how to manage priorities. Civil service staffing is currently at its lowest level since the Second World War, with a reduction of 15% since 2010, and yet it will now be necessary, somehow, to take forward this huge programme of change while at the same time not losing sight of other domestic priorities.

Another fundamental challenge for the leadership in Whitehall will be working out a way to take these changes forward while the overall sense of direction is still emerging. The mission is clear (Brexit) , but the sense of direction – exactly what form of change we are working towards and what shape it will take on – is still opaque, and there are some big questions to tackle. For example, as powers and resources are handed back by Brussels, how far will they feed into greater devolution, or to increased centralisation? There are opportunities for the former certainly, harnessed to the important work that is needed to rebuild trust within local communities. Taking devolution further forward will however require considerable input from the civil service, at a time when they have their hands extremely full on other fronts. Fashioning a way forward while the big picture slowly unfolds is likely to call for particularly sensitive and finely-judged leadership. In an emergent situation of this kind, a collaborative style of working is likely to be particular relevant.

Two of the most successful teams in the early stages of the European Cup – Iceland and Wales – voiced strikingly similar and simple views about the ‘recipe’ for their success: have a plan and be a team. Both of these messages seem highly relevant to the current post-Referendum situation, and should be taken very much to heart in Whitehall.

Ellen Roberts - follow me on Twitter 

How the British political elite has done the groundwork for Brexit

In one month from now, on 23^rd June, the British electorate (or rather those who are registered as voters and can be bothered to cast a ballot) will decide on the future of the United Kingdom (UK) either inside or outside of the European Union (EU).

While the referendum campaign has heated up considerably over the last few weeks, including the inevitable references to Hitler and bendy bananas, and the media’s eyes are turned towards the divisions of the Conservative Party, there is no clear indication as to what the likely outcome is, at least not if we trust in polls. Despite some variation, the ‘poll of polls’ that captures the average of all surveys has for a long time hovered around an even 50/50 split between ‘remain’ and ‘leave’ – which is further proof that opinion polls can be as insightful as asking Auntie Agatha or Uncle Albert.

With often polemical debates running high, and everyone expressing their opinions, I think it is not too preposterous to add my own views as a long-term resident of the UK and one of those pesky immigrants who have come to this beautiful country.

If Britain chose to leave the EU, it would be fair to say that this is the outcome of the long-term relationship that British political and economic elites have had with the project of European integration. In other words, many of those who now argue for ‘remain’ would be at least indirectly responsible for a success of ‘leave’. Here is why, in four steps:

1.  The vote to withdraw from the EU has multiple drivers and is inspired by different, sometimes opposing political views, but it seems reasonable to say that it was primarily high levels of net immigration, notably from Eastern European countries after 2004, that have fuelled the anger and frustration of substantive shares of the population towards the EU.
2. At the same time, over the course of the last years, it has become clear even to the most naïve that economic globalisation, free trade and the financialisation of the world economy, linked to weakened welfare states and ever more competition between states, industries, organisations and individuals, produces a great deal of despair, tension and unrest. With centre-left and centre-right governments equally unwilling and incapable of addressing these issues head-on, it is not surprising that the public support to all representatives of what is seen as the establishment runs low – to put it mildly.
3. Both factors, immigration and the dark underbelly of a globalised world, are well aligned to the long-term preferences of British political elites regarding the EU. Always a strong proponent of an EU that is as large and at the same time as little integrated as possible, the UK was one of the most vocal advocates of admitting Eastern and Central European countries as quickly as possible – and together with Sweden the only EU member state that in 2004 didn’t impose any transitory labour market restrictions on citizens from these states. While the historical responsibility of uniting Europe should not be understated, there is no reason to assume that a slower process, involving an institutionalised partnership between East and West beyond the EU (as it was proposed among others by the French President Mitterrand after the German unification), would have been impossible.
4. When it comes to the negative impact of ‘globalisation’ (to use this as a shorthand for more complex problems), the hopes of the centre-left to turn the EU into some sort of bulwark against the most damaging forms of economic competition while developing a common framework for addressing humanity’s challenges such as climate change or global insecurity, have been crushed, often by the same parties of the centre-left whose ideology consisted of delivering neoliberal policies with a ‘human face’ – an aim that was so largely missed that social-democratic parties across Europe have become an almost negligible force.

To summarise, the orientation of British politics in the last two decades has laid the groundwork for the UK leaving the EU becoming a serious possibility.

This is not to imply that the UK alone is to be blamed for the woes of Europe, given that other countries have been on the same page. Germany for example shares Britain’s basic views, mainly because it has managed so well to turn Eastern Europe into its own backyard factory, with low paid workers assembling goods for export on which German companies only need to put the sticker ‘Made in Germany’. That Britain has proceeded differently by mainly importing the labour force, is hardly more than a variation on the same theme.

This does also not imply that a better integrated EU would be an intrinsically benign project. The recent treatment of Greece and Malta, the obvious lack of democratic accountability, and the one-sided orientation of its economic policy towards ever more competition, as exemplified by the TTIP negotiations, have shown that the EU is in need of profound reform (if it is not long too late for this, as it increasingly appears) – reforms that may have to be negotiated without input from the UK, within an EU under shock from losing one of its key members.

Enrico Reuter - follow me on Twitter: @ReuterEnrico