The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
44.
Lord Wilson of
Dinton, Cabinet Secretary from 1998 to 2002, told the Inquiry
that
the
appointment of Advisers and their role as Heads of the relevant
Secretariats in the
Cabinet
Office had reflected Mr Blair’s desire to have his senior people
around him:
“He had
his own team. That is, to be honest, how he liked to
work.”25
Lord Wilson
said
that he had
been against the change.
45.
The Butler
Review commented that the effect of the decision to combine “two
key
posts at
the top of the Cabinet Secretariat” (the Heads of the Overseas and
Defence
and of the
European Secretariats), with the posts of the Prime Minister’s
Advisers on
Foreign
Affairs and on European Affairs, had been to: “weight their
responsibility to the
Prime
Minister more heavily than their responsibility through the Cabinet
Secretary to
the Cabinet
as a whole”.26
46.
The Butler
Review acknowledged that the “view of the present post-holders
is
that the
arrangement works well, in particular in connecting the work of the
Cabinet
Secretariat
to that of the Prime Minister’s office”. It also recorded that “it
was clear
from the
departmental policy papers it had seen that there was very close
co-operation
between
officials in the Prime Minister’s office and in the FCO in policy
making on Iraq”.
The Review
commented: “It is nonetheless a shift which acts to concentrate
detailed
knowledge
and effective decision-making in fewer minds at the
top.”
47.
The Butler
Review concluded that the changes to the key posts at the head of
the
Cabinet
Secretariat had:
“… lessened
the support of the machinery of government for the
collective
responsibility
of the Cabinet in the vital matter of war and
peace.”27
48.
Asked whether
it would have been helpful for him to have a dual role similar
to
Sir David
Manning’s roles as both the Prime Minister’s Foreign Policy Adviser
and the
Head of OD
Sec, Sir David Omand told the Inquiry that he had “concluded on
balance,
the
arrangement had more disadvantages than
advantages”.28
He added
that:
“I think
there is a helpful external perception of objectivity and support
for the
collective
process amongst departments, if you are on the Cabinet Office side
of
the … door
rather than in No.10.
“I hesitate
to say this, but I think it does over a period of time tend to
disenfranchise
the Cabinet
Secretary. It is a very subtle psychodynamic effect… any
Prime
Minister …
is going to have a trusted group of inner confidants and advisers
and
if …
the adviser is simultaneously the Deputy to the Cabinet Secretary
and Head of
25
Public
hearing, 25 January 2011, pages 21-22.
26
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
page
147.
27
Review of
Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction [“The
Butler Report”], 14 July 2004, HC 898,
pages
147-148.
28
Public
hearing, 20 January 2010, pages 52-53.
274