It is an entertaining irony that the scrapping of the Cabinet Office’s security-oriented ‘horizon scanning’ team in 2010 reveals a remarkable lack of foresight. Just three years on, the department has rebuilt its ability to conceive and analyse possible future scenarios (see our feature) – and this time its brief runs right across Whitehall. Whilst the new governance structure lacks its own research team, it has the essential ability to commission cross-cutting work from departmental teams – the strategic issues examined in this field rarely sit within a single brief.
The new advisory and oversight panels look strong enough to maintain progress, and if Jon Day’s report is fully implemented then the weaknesses in commissioning, presenting and applying horizon scanning work should be addressed. His report is also wise to support the use of outside experts, who’ll bring unique knowledge and resources. And the creation of a central function should help departmental teams find the space and skills to explore big, far-reaching issues, alongside the more narrowly-focused pieces of work that tend to come down departmental heirarchies.
The new system isn’t perfect – managers and commissioners will still have to work hard to get a balanced view on cross-cutting issues from teams embedded in departments – but it’s a lot better than anything that preceded it. The million dollar question is whether, on the really tough issues, ministers will react to what they’re being told; for governments are notoriously slow to act when the dangers are long-term and the challenges – funding solutions and facing down interest groups – so immediate. Take social care, state pensions, climate change, housing shortages, or security: even when the risks are clear, the solutions emerge painfully slowly – and often fatally compromised by funding or political constraints.
To consider the fundamental challenge facing horizon scanning, ask yourself this: would any government, if an internal horizon scanning team had in 2005 joined a handful of economists and opposition politicians to warn of an impending credit crunch, have up-ended its economic growth model, and faced down the City and a borrowing-addicted population in a bid to avert economic catastrophe? It seems unlikely. Yet the warning would have added to the good analysis available to ministers, making action more likely. And it is, after all, the civil service’s job to predict, assess, plan and deliver, rather than to decide. In future, even if the battles on Whitehall are still fought with short-sighted motives, the combatants should at least be armed with longer-sighted information.
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Matt Ross, Editor. matt.ross@dods.co.uk