Building No 10 North

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The new Prime Minister has promised to “take power back from Westminster and Whitehall and give it to the place where you live”. At the heart of those plans is No 10 North, promised to become the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain”.

But a new postcode will not, by itself, create a new model of government. Simply making policy in Manchester will not bring government closer to communities across the country, break down departmental silos, or help to push ahead to a new era of devolution across England.

To justify the practical costs and complexity involved, No 10 North must be designed as more than a relocated government office. It should strengthen the strategic, policy and delivery capacity immediately supporting the Prime Minister, while creating a powerful new centre for the machinery through which Whitehall transfers powers, funding, staff and assets to subnational government. Its success should be measured by the amount of control that moves out of the centre.

This paper provides a blueprint for building that institution. It proposes four core units focused on devolution, subnational investment and growth, the democratisation of arm’s-length bodies, and place-based public-service innovation. These would be supported by a Prime Minister’s Transformation Directorate, bringing strategy, policy and delivery expertise together to drive priorities across departmental boundaries and intervene where the existing machinery of government is blocking progress.

No 10 North should also model a different way of governing. That means recruiting new expertise from outside conventional Whitehall pathways, building a continuous system for learning from innovation in places, sharing data across institutional boundaries, and operating with clear public objectives and reporting requirements. And it should bring together and reorganise existing central capacity, rather than simply adding another layer to an already complex system.