How to be a Government Adviser

Tips for the new Labour intake

A few years ago I wrote a post about my failings as a government adviser (in the Department for Education 2010-2013). So it might seem a bit presumptuous to offer advice to the several hundred new ministerial advisers appointed since the election.

But, as that article hopefully showed, I’ve thought a lot since then about what I did wrong (and right) and observed dozens of others doing the job with varying degrees of success. I also interviewed many former advisers for my book.

Part of the problem with the role is that it is so unusual. Some prior professional experiences will be more useful than others, but nothing can prepare you for being thrust, usually at too young an age, into a position of extraordinary, but ambiguous, authority.

Unlike a minister you have no formal powers, either to make decisions or demands of civil servants. But depending on circumstances you usually have a great deal of de facto power to do these things, without much in the way of public accountability. As a result it’s very easy to mess up.

Before getting into the advice it’s worth setting out a bit of context for those who don’t spend their time hanging around Westminster.

Every department in Whitehall has a team of between two and six advisers who work directly to the Secretary of State. Number 10 has around thirty political advisers working in teams that often include normal civil servants too.

Most advisers are SPADs (special advisers) who are political appointments and follow a different set of rules to other officials. They can, for instance, make party political statements, work with MPs on political campaigns, and attend party conferences.

Over the past few decades there has been growing use of a second group: senior policy advisers (I was one). They have to follow the standard civil service rules but are appointed outside normal processes, on request from ministers. If they stay longer than two years they have to go through a proper appointment process. It’s a way of adding more support to ministers that’s less transparent (and attackable) than hiring SPADS, whose salaries are published.

There are three main types of adviser role: comms, policy, and chief of staff.

Comms advisers are always SPADs because they have to be able to make party political arguments to journalists. This group spend their time trying to get good press for announcements, high profile interviews for their boss, and shutting down negative stories. Of the three types it’s the most straightforward conceptually, though exhausting as you’re always on and have to be over everything that could turn into a story. A hack could call about anything at any time.

Policy advisers can be SPADs but are increasingly senior policy advisers. It is rarely necessary to be explicitly political in these jobs. It’s a more variable role than the comms one as it can be done by fairly junior people who are really just monitoring what’s going and making sure ministers are sighted on key decisions. But sometimes it will involve taking a major role in policy design, alongside civil servants.

I was more in the second category, as I did have an education policy background. I was also lucky in having a Secretary of State (Michael Gove) who wasn’t at all directive, which meant I could choose what to work on. That would not have been true had I been working for, say, Dominic Raab.

Finally you have the “Chief of staff” types, who are somewhat rarer and are always SPADs. They won’t always have that title but are identifiable as the most senior adviser and the one with the most access to the Secretary of State. They will typically lead a team of more junior advisers, co-ordinating across comms and policy. Not all cabinet ministers will employ this set-up: many don’t have a “chief of staff”. It usually happens when ministers have a long-term and close relationship with a particular adviser, who will follow them wherever they go.

The advice that follows covers the key relationships advisers need to build, and shortcuts to finding important information, as well as tips on how to deal with the press, No. 10 and the Treasury. It’s mainly aimed at those doing policy jobs, because that’s what I did, and it’s the type of adviser I’ve tended to interact with since. But there will be read across to the media and chief of staff roles.