Ministerial Advisers as Power Resources: Exploring Expansion, Stability and Contraction in Westminster Ministers’ Offices

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the entourage of ministerial advisers available to prime ministers and other ministers is an institutional power resource that can serve as a useful indicator to measure the changing nature of the political executive. Two novel contributions are made utilising four new datasets on ministerial advisers coupled with a comparative analysis of 21 governments in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, in varying dates between 1997 and 2020. First, by using ministerial advisers as a proxy indicator, we chart how the offices of executive politicians can either expand, remain stable or contract. As a corrective to the general long-term narrative that ministers’ offices continually expand, our evidence shows this expansion has in some cases been interrupted and more generally manifests in different patterns from one government to the next. Second, we interrogate these patterns against the background of four typical assumptions from the party family, government tenure, parliamentary control and leadership stability literature. The new datasets, typology and analysis provide fresh comparative insights to advance our understanding about the evolving nature of the political executive in the four classic Westminster family countries.

Theorising policy advisory system management: approaches and practice

“…New Public Management reforms stand out as the most prominent example where governments implemented broad and far-reaching changes to PAS configuration and practice (Aucoin 1995;Halligan 2020). Our analysis points to other examples such as the practice of expanding the use of ministerial partisan advisers in Australia and Canada with major implications for how policy advising and policymaking are now undertaken (Craft 2016;Eichbaum and Shaw 2010;Pickering et al 2023). Likewise, the institutionalised reliance on private consultants for essential policy advisory activity in Australia reflects a broader PAS management application (van den Berg et al 2019).…”

“…We have also showcased the practices associated with dependent forms of PAS management, which have been most clearly manifested in the acute examples of private sector consultant use in Britain for Brexit purposes, but also via ongoing reliance on consultants in Australia required by governments for policymaking. In laissez-faire management form we see a more hands-off or status quo approach to the use of first ministers' partisan advisers with virtually flat numbers and similar functions across the cases, while ministerial office partisan advisers have swelled (Pickering et al 2023). More generally, while all four countries have demonstrated that centralisation of power around first ministers or heavy use of central government levers, there is widespread recognition that governments have limited capacity to manage everything.…”

“…More commonly, PAS management has seen authoritative forms via the greatly expanded use of ministers’ office partisan advisers, particularly in Australia and Canada. While original attention was focused on the influence and role of Prime Minister’s office staff their numbers have remained relatively flat across the four countries over time while explosive growth among ministers’ office staff, particularly in Australia and Canada, has drawn more scrutiny (Pickering et al 2023; Maley 2015). Not only for their importance in advising ministers on matters of policy and politics but as important tools in modern political and policy management approaches for prime ministers and cabinet who are seeking policy and political coherence within government and with key stakeholders outside of it (Eichbaum and Shaw 2010; Craft 2015; Dahlstom et al.…”