About the Strategy Unit
Origins and reporting line
The Unit was set up in 2002, bringing together the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) and the Prime Minister's Forward Strategy Unit (FSU) to:
- improve the Government's capacity to address long term and/or cross- cutting strategic issues
- promote innovation in policy development and the delivery of the Government's objectives
The Unit is based in the Cabinet Office but reports to the Prime Minister who takes final decisions about the Unit's work.
Stephen Aldridge is the Unit's Director.
Roles
The Unit's core roles are:
- to carry out strategy reviews and provide policy advice in accordance with the PM's domestic policy priorities
- to support departments in developing effective strategies and policies – including helping them to build their strategic capability
- to identify and effectively disseminate thinking on emerging issues and challenges e.g. through occasional strategic audits
Work areas
Strategy Unit projects and other work have covered a very broad range of issues. There is no area of domestic policy in which the SU could not (in principle) be asked to work.
To view outputs from previous Strategy Unit work, see past work areas
Distinctive features
There are a number of distinctive features to the way the Unit works:
- the Unit has few day to day responsibilities which means it can focus on the important rather than the urgent. Most work is project based with teams of between 2 and 6 people working on particular issues
- there is an emphasis on analytical rigour and an evidence–based approach, allowing issues to be addressed from first principles
- the Unit works closely and often jointly with central government departments and others, helping to ensure a holistic and cross–cutting approach is taken and laying the ground for effective implementation
- the work of the Unit can culminate in statements of Government policy so it's necessary to be able to come up with practical and acceptable solutions that can be implemented as well as good ideas
- the Unit is staffed by a mix of permanent civil servants and others on fixed term contracts or secondments. The civil servants generally come on loan from government departments; the non#8211;civil servants come from the private sector; academia; think tanks; NGO's; and overseas. All are bound by the Civil Service Code.
Outputs
The outputs of the work of the Strategy Unit can take various forms:
- confidential advice and analysis for the Prime Minister
- joint work with departments – culminating in a White Paper, Green Paper or other policy statement
- publically announced SU–led strategy reviews
Individual projects or pieces of work can take from 4–5 weeks to 4–5 months or longer.
Value Added
The Unit seeks to add value by providing:
- analytical capacity to get to the root causes of policy problems
- strategic policy making capacity for addressing problems
- critical challenge
Success measures
The impact of the Unit's work is measured by:
- specific policy changes and measures
- its contribution to raising the profile of issues, or re-framing the way in which they are considered
- impacts on building strategic capability in central government
- positive impacts on economic and social outcomes
The Public Administration Select Committee's report on strategic thinking in Whitehall, published on the 6th March 2007, provides an external assessment of aspects of the Unit's work:
“Governing the Future”: March 2007
Strategic Audit and forward look
The aims of the Unit's Strategic Audit and forward look functions are:
- to take stock of the UK's overall performance (e.g. in relation to other countries) and to review progress towards the Government's long term objectives
- to identify future challenges and opportunities facing the UK and the UK Government
- to consider whether there are any potential gaps in current strategies and policies
- to identify issues which though they may not be especially politically salient today may become so over the medium term
- to inform current and future SU work
- this has culminated in published Strategic Audit reports in 2003 and 2005
