Moving the Mandarins - Thoughts on the New NSA Appointment

 

There was a surprise announcement on Friday 29 Jan that Sir Stephen Lovegrove, Permanent Under Secretary (PUS) over at the MOD was to become the new National Security Advisor (NSA). This was a surprise move, as Lord Frost had only recently taken on the role, and he will instead focus his attention on Brexit and setting up an International Policy Unit for No10.

This may sound like a relatively dreary subject, but in fact it is a fascinating insight into Whitehall machinations, and understanding how national security is handled and covered in Whitehall, and an insight into wider leadership changes.

The role of the NSA is one of the less well understood jobs in Whitehall. While it is without doubt one of the catchiest job titles, the function is less well defined. At its heart, the post is about being the individual who leads the Secretariat that co-ordinates national security policy making, and provides co-ordinated advice to the Prime Minster on policy and crisis response.

The post holder could be seen, in national security terms as the apex of the national security pyramid. With direct access to the PM, and the ability to convene Whitehall departments and direct policy making activity, the role is tremendously powerful. The NSA essentially translates the Prime Minister's aspirations for their government when it comes to national security objectives, and ensures that the machinery of government delivers them.

It is both a demanding role and a busy one. The post holder will be responsible for driving through national security policy, setting direction for strategic decisions and ensuring that the national security departments deliver against expectations, and do so in a manner that is affordable against agreed spending limits.

There is also a significant element of international engagement – even in a world of virtual zoom calls, there is significant emphasis placed on building personal links and relationships with peers. When the NSA speaks, other nations will know they speak with both the authority of the Prime Minister, and are reflecting his/her direction and views.

This is important as it leaves no ambiguity and no room for debate. A visit by the NSA is, in terms of national security debates, as good as securing a visit by the Prime Minister. Hence, international engagement is a key part of the role. It is also a time consuming one too.

In practical terms, the decision to split the two roles seems entirely sensible. Whatever your views on the outcome of Brexit, there will need to be ongoing debate, discussion and negotiations with our European friends for many years to come. The nature of this will often be technical, non-national security related, and also time consuming – relying as much on discrete engagement, private conversations and messaging, as it does formal talks.

This task alone is significant, and is not one that can easily be delegated. European leaders will want to engage with the person empowered to speak on behalf of the PM, and this requires full time attention. To that end, it makes sense to split the posts – for the role of NSA and Brexit lead is realistically too much for one post holder alone.

Keeping the current NSA in role, given his strong pre-existing links with Europe seems entirely sensible, and ensures that relationships built up over the Brexit debates continue to be maintained. It also ensures that another individual can step up and ensure that the national security policy space benefits from dedicated full time leadership.

The appointment of Sir Stephen comes at a time when the national security community faces significant challenges. While it has benefitted from a reasonable spending round settlement, it has not yet delivered the very overdue Integrated Review to set out national security priorities for the next five years.

The new NSA will need to lead this work, both owning its final conclusions, and delivering it over a sustained period. There will be much change ahead, so it makes a lot of sense to appoint a full time NSA to focus on this work.

The UK will over the next year or two need to define its policy response towards (in no particular order), NATO, countering Russia, how to manage the relationship with China, defining the level of UK interest in areas like the Asia Pacific region and Indian Ocean, and of course, building and sustaining relationships with the new figures in the Biden administration.

This needs to be done against the context of wider thematic issues like climate change, the recovery from COVID,  new technology and the importance of industrial capability the resurgence of nation states as a hostile threat and the use of cyberspace as a proxy for physical confrontation (to get an idea of these threats, the excellent new Sky podcast ‘Grey Zone’ –is well worth a listen).

Finally the challenge is to deliver this complex work against the backdrop of a challenging financial situation. There are difficult decisions ahead on how to prioritise funding, what to do more of and what to do less of. There are no easy answers – investing in one priority( say cyber) will mean less money to spend on other areas (like conventional warfare).

To understand the role of Defence in this, this is also a good opportunity to flag up the new MOD Doctrine and Concept Development Centre publication ‘The Orchestration of Military Strategic Effects Guide’ (doesn’t that title just roll off the tongue). This is a very good way of trying to understand how the MOD thinks it will contribute to this work.

There is perhaps some misconception too around how the NSA team works. It is at its heart a secretariat organisation – in other words it pulls in information from across Government, captures views, tests ideas and tries to build consensus about an issue.

Much of this work is done by the National Security team in the Cabinet Secretariat. Drawn from civil servants, mostly on loan from other departments, the role of the Secretariat is to provide the central leadership, direction and control over Whitehall. They are responsible for ensuring that the various myriad arms of government can be drawn together and properly co-ordinated, and that seniors are presented with the right information, and properly considered policy options that they need to decide on.

By bringing this information together, it is possible for the NSA to ensure that the PM and Cabinet understand both the challenges facing the UK, and the range of options that could be considered to tackle them. In turn, the NSA understands the appetite of Ministers to pursue some courses of action, and where support is less strong. This enables the NSA to direct the machinery of government appropriately to deliver what the PM, Cabinet and Ministers wish to see happen.

The appointment of Sir Stephen will be heralded by some as ‘good news’ for the MOD – and doubtless it will be helpful to arrive as the NSA with a good understanding of both the MOD’s capability and position. But those hoping it enables a ‘blank cheque’ are likely to be disappointed – prior knowledge of a role does not mean favouritism in the future, and it also means you know where the bodies are buried, where the skeletons are hidden and where the Department is engaging in what could be termed as ‘bad behaviour’…

For the Whitehall establishment as a whole this appointment heralds another senior move at a time when there has been considerable churn at the top. 2020 was highly unusual in that so many senior staff chose (hopefully of their own volition) to leave government, often much earlier than expected. This has led to a period of bedding in new seniors and reshuffling of senior leadership teams.

In the national security space, there have been new Permanent Secretaries or Director Generals / Heads appointed to MI5, SIS, NCSC, FCDO, DIT and now MOD within the last 12 months. CDS is also likely to be replaced later this year too. When brought together this represents a very significant set of new leadership, which will be mirrored too by changes in internal structures and roles.

With that in mind, the national security architecture of the UK is both simultaneously new in role, but also likely to be in post for some time to come. This provides a good opportunity to set direction now that will be overseen for some years to come by the current team.

It is likely that the MOD will look to appoint a new Permanent Secretary, potentially from an external source. For some years now all Senior Civil Service appointments have been externally advertised, to encourage as many applicants as possible.

The role of MOD PUS is without doubt one of the most exciting and rewarding jobs in Whitehall. To have the privilege of leading over 50,000 superb civil servants and helping shape the planning and organisation of national defence is an enormous challenge. This is a job that should hopefully attract a wide range of very talented applications – it will be interesting to see if the appointment is offered to a senior MOD official or an external appointment.

From a Whitehall watchers perspective, if it is given to either an external or non MOD official, it may raise interesting questions about the talent management process in Defence. It is now nearly 20 years since the last ‘career MOD’ civil servant ended up as the PUS, with their successors having had backgrounds mostly outside of the Defence world before joining the department.

What has been interesting is that not only is Defence not generating its own PUS, but there is little evidence of MOD officials moving out to other departments as Permanent Secretaries – for some reason MOD doesn’t seem to be able to get its staff into the highest offices in the Civil Service – does this reflect a failing in the internal talent management process and why are so few senior posts in Government drawn by those with a deep experience and background in Defence? Looking forward, does this suggest that further change is needed to help grow the next cadre of potential Perm Secs?

As Sir Stephen moves from the relative luxury of his 5^th floor office in MOD over to the rabbit warren of corridors and tiny offices in the 70 Whitehall complex, two thoughts spring to mind. Firstly, that seemingly the closer you get to the heart of power, the smaller and shabbier the offices become – anyone familiar with 70 Whitehall will recall its sense of being somewhere that feels a bit like a neglected grand country house, where the owners don’t have quite enough money for upkeep.

Secondly, the sense is that this is a phenomenally exciting time ahead for national security in the UK. Huge changes have happened, and there are many complex issues that lie ahead for both this, and future governments. The policy decisions taken in the next few years will reverberate for many years to come.

Thankfully, to help steer these decisions, the NSA will be able to draw on some of the finest minds, and talented Civil Servants in the world to deliver. The challenge is enormous, but we should be thankful that there are some superb people on the job of delivering the right outcome for us all.