National Security Council

The NSC demonstrates the potential benefits of ‘strong grip’ at the centre and the ‘halo effect’ of significant prime ministerial investment of time and effort in committee work. But a prime minister’s time is at a premium and sustained investment of it in the NSC process depends on that process being seen to add value to national security decision-making. In this respect, the NSC underlines the importance of a well-resourced secretariat and an effective NSA to coordinate the process and drive delivery. The performance of the NSC and its predecessors provides a valuable case study to help unpack the challenges and opportunities of central coordination of national security, including:  the significant potential gains from sustained prime ministerial attention and the concomitant risks of losing effectiveness if prime ministers fail to devote sufficient time to the process  the necessity of inter-departmental co-operation, and the integral role that a national security adviser can play as an effective broker between competing departmental interests  the potential tension between strategic and operational focus  the need for a well-resourced central secretariat and the difficulty of driving delivery from what is, relative to international comparators, the small centre of UK government, as the secretariat – like any other part of the centre – suffers a capacity gap vis à vis departments, and has become smaller since May 2010. It is too early to say whether the NSC will long survive in its current format. As recent history shows, central committees often have short life-cycles and can suffer from personal identification with one prime minister. But to take a longer view, it is clear that past administrations have repeatedly grappled with the same core problems of central coordination. In wartime, most prime ministers have coordinated activities using committees very similar to the NSC, although long-serving prime ministers like Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair can begin to favour less formal, smaller circles of national security advice and decision making. Such a step away from formal committee processes prompts criticism that it jeopardises clarity and transparency within government. Successive prime ministers have also experimented with different combinations of senior official appointments at the top of the national security hierarchy. The NSA post is the latest and boldest iteration of this process. It combines most of the responsibilities previously undertaken by up to five different officials. It would be a mistake to interpret all this as a process of evolution, leading gradually to one, uniquely ‘perfect’ method of coordinating national security from the centre. Prime ministers will continue to differ in their needs; much will depend on what kind of prime minister they intend to be and what priorities they wish to drive personally. In each case, the Civil Service must be ready to recalibrate arrangements to provide the necessary support, whether a prime minister intends to adopt a more or less ‘hands on’ approach to national security. The NSC reform is a good example of one such reorganisation to suit a prime minister’s needs in coordinating policy from the centre. There had been wide-spread recognition before the election that reform was needed to ‘enable a holistic approach to national security’. 5 An IPPR report in 2009 had called for a National Security Council and a single security budget. 6 And participants in a series of closed-space discussions facilitated by the Institute for Government and Libra Advisory Group shared the view that a ‘more powerful’ NSC-like structure ‘underpinned by a strengthened secretariat’ was necessary, feeling ‘that the arrangements for coordination on counter-terrorism, with the lead in the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism, worked well, but that this degree of strategic focus and clear line to delivery did not exist in other areas’. 7 After four and a half years, and with ano