Cabinet Office

Um, so when it comes to the infrastructure piece, um, there's obviously a whole set of questions and issues around the environment, around planning, around energy, that we need to bring government together on.

Um, and we have a sort of very active, um, group that, um, works together on those issues that will be brought to- together by the new Cabinet Office task force in that respect.

I think then when we look at the actual sort of use of AI in our world, and it leads to questions such as, you know, what happens to my likeness, you know, how do I know what's AI and what's not? Um, we are really seriously getting into the policy work on those questions.

So, I mean, on the two that Emily raised in the autumn, we will be, um, uh, consulting on questions around digital replicas, those questions about likenesses.

So overall, like, just some, from that very brief overview, this is a real whole government issue.

I mean, I think most departments have contributions to make to these questions.

Um, so in the, the s- the restructure that we've just had, um, when Andy Burnham came in as Prime Minister, we have a new Cabinet Office AI task force, which is there to seize the opportunities of AI, but also, um, to sort of understand actually what... how do, how do we have AI on, on sort of U- the UK's terms, on, on British terms, and to, to cover the waterfront of those questions, and that will sort of act as a real convening force.

Um, we have a department in, uh, what is now BIS that will very much look at how do we build the infrastructure and the economic underpinnings and really go after those goals I've talked about in terms of sort of trying to hold the, um, the, the value of, of UK companies.

And it's not just MI5 files.

One can also look at cabinet office documents, material from the military, maybe some material from different elements, high echelons of the George Intelligence Committee.

And once you sort of slot these together, one can sort of see where the jigsaw is coming together and which pieces may or may not be missing.

There may be a file, there may not be a file, but...

Is, um, let's talk a little bit about how foreign policy is actually made in, uh, in whi- in, in the British state.

So you have a prime minister who's represented on this issue by a powerful national security advisor, who's backed up by a national security secretariat that sits in the Cabinet Office, that federates a lot of work from the intelligence serv- intelligence services.

And then you meet in the National Security Council, in a place where you can hash all these debates out, a foreign secretary who is looking at the world not from Whitehall and not from those intelligence relationships and those relationships with the other key G7 leaders, but looking at the world from the embassy, and then you hash things out.

Mm.

What that means is that it's the bit of f- the foreign policy machinery that's looking from the Cabinet Office and Number 10 and the intelligence agencies that is always going to point to the relationship of America, the relationship with Israel, and how that adds to our security.

Whereas the Foreign Office looking from the embassies is always going to point to how those relationships are erratic or subtracting from our credibility, uh, shall we say.

So from my experience, the Foreign Office, uh, and our embassies tend to be the more critical of Israel than the National Security Secretariat and all of that intelligence mechanism that exists, uh, in the center that tends to be a lot more Atlanticist and a lot more committed to, um- Explaining just how much, how important the relationship with other allied intelligence services, of which one would include the Mossad, are to, uh, UK security

Um, and one of the very interesting things he decided to do was set up Number 10 North.

Uh, we at the Institute for Government have thought, uh, quite a lot about how the central government works in London, about the relationship between Number 10, the Cabinet Office, and the Treasury, uh, and made lots of recommendations, uh, including a big commission we ran ahead of the general election in 2024-

[coughs]

... uh, where we looked back through the history of how the central government works and m- and identified lots of long-standing problems.

Yeah

... for the regional leaders.

Tom, what more do we know, [laughs] um, or, or hope, uh, is going on in terms of how the center, both Number 10 North, but also this concept, um, that's, uh, the sort of reorganization of the center to create an office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which, uh, we're not entirely sure what that means for the Cabinet Office.

Um, it still seems to exist.

Um, so when it comes to the infrastructure piece, um, there's obviously a whole set of questions and issues around the environment, around planning, around energy that we need to bring government together on.

Um, and we have a sort of very active, uh, group that, um, works together on those issues that will be brought to- together by the new Cabinet Office task force in that respect.

I think then when we look at the actual sort of use of AI in our world, and it leads to questions such as, you know, what happens to my likeness? You know, how do I know what's AI and what's not? Um, we are really seriously getting into the policy work on those questions.

So I mean, on the two that Emily raised in the autumn, we will be, um, uh, consulting on questions around digital replicas, those questions about likenesses.

So overall, like, just some, from that very brief overview, this is a real whole of government issue.

I mean, I think most departments have contributions to make to these questions.

Um, so in the, the, the restructure that we've just had, um, when Andy Burnham came in as Prime Minister, we have a new Cabinet Office AI task force, which is there to seize the opportunities of AI, but also, um, to sort of understand actually what, how do, how do we have AI on, on sort of U- the UK's terms, on, on British terms, and to, to cover the waterfront of those questions.

And that will sort of act as a real convening force.

Um, and one of the very interesting things he decided to do was set up Number 10 North.

Uh, we at the Institute for Government have thought, uh, f-quite a lot about how the central government works in London, about the relationship between Number 10, the Cabinet Office and the Treasury, uh, and made lots of recommendations, uh, including a big commission we ran ahead of the general election in 2024, uh, where we looked back through the history of how the central government works and m-- and identified lots of long-standing problems.

So we were really delighted to see the Prime Minister thinking about how government works, how the central government works, and acknowledging that there are those problems, uh, and that you can't just come in and assume that you're a new prime minister and everything you do will make everything better.

You actually do have to think about structures.

Yeah

... for the regional leaders.

Tom, what more do we know, [laughs] um, or, or hope, uh, is going on in terms of how the center, both Number 10 North but also this concept, um, that's, uh, the sort of reorganization of the center to create an office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which, uh, we're not entirely sure what that means for the Cabinet Office.

Um, it still seems to exist.

I worked in the Treasury.

I worked in the Cabinet Office.

I worked on various reforms under both her and Tony Blair.

changing how government works.