In his first reshuffle, Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed 12 ministers to joint positions across different government departments. These include his brother Jo, reappointed to a joint role on universities and innovation at the departments for education and business—a role which the younger Johnson held until he was moved to transport by Theresa May in January 2018.
Other double-hatters include Zac Goldsmith, who will report to the new Secretaries of State for International Development, Alok Sharma, and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Theresa Villers; and Johnny Mercer, who will join the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office as Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. A dozen such roles isn’t an all-time high—David Cameron had 16 joint ministers at the start of 2016—but it is an increase on May, who had 10 at the end of her administration, up from eight after the 2017 election. Ministers have held multiple roles at the same time before—Winston Churchill was Minister for Defence and Prime Minister throughout World War Two—but the idea of using them to bring together related policy areas in different departments has increased in recent years, ticking up steadily since the 1990s.
PMs can use these roles to signal their priorities to the Whitehall machine and make things happen. In 2015 Cameron appointed Richard Harrington as Minister for Syrian Refugees, working across the Home Office and the Departments for Local Government and International Development. This allowed Cameron to say that he was dealing with the issue and also created a focal point in government, bringing together all the relevant departments, to ensure progress was made on the refugee resettlement programme. Presumably Johnson is hoping for something similar from Mercer’s role at the MoD and Cabinet Office—creating a minister for veterans’ affairs and placing him in the relevant department as well as at the centre of government shows that this is an issue the PM wants to be seen to care about.
And many of those who have done this type of job before think that it is a good way of running things. Jo Swinson, the recently elected Liberal Democrat leader, was a junior minister at the business department during the coalition, responsible for equalities policy, an area shared with the Department for Culture. She told the Institute for Government’s Ministers Reflect programme that double-hatting helped “in preventing the silo mentality.”
These roles can also mean that ministers are better able to drive particular policy agendas than if they were solely working in one department. Nick Boles was Minister for Skills between 2014 and 2016, reporting to the secretaries of state for both business and education, and came up with the apprenticeship levy. He told the Institute that “neither secretary of state was my boss, completely,” which meant that “neither of my immediate bosses were in complete control of apprenticeships policy, and I knew that I could sell the idea to the chancellor and the PM.”
However, other ministers have found that holding two roles does not always make it easier for them to get things done. Damian Green, who worked across the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice during the coalition years, said that “most of all you are trying to work to two bosses who may well have two different agendas, and indeed there is an inherent tension between the home secretary and the justice secretary, whoever it is.”
As well as the difficulties of reporting to two bosses, being a joint minister can just mean more bureaucracy. Boles said that he resisted attempts by Whitehall to create extra structures around his joint role: “this idea of having two offices and a private office, all moving when the buildings were 150 yards apart, I just thought all that was nonsense.” Similarly, Green said that one of the challenges was “you have two sets of demands on your time, and all the things that ministers have to do that go beneath the radar—visits and speaking at slightly dull conferences and so on—there’s just twice as much of that.” Green also said that the system wasn’t always able to cope with the concept of joint ministers, leading to “surreal moments” like “one point where I was required to write to myself as one minister in a department to another, demanding that something happen.”
If the new prime minister is clear what he wants these joint ministers to achieve, they have a real opportunity to bring about meaningful change. Swinson pushed through her flagship shared parental leave policy, and Boles, with the support of George Osborne, created the apprenticeship levy. But these roles can also lead to confusion, duplication of work and extra bureaucracy. The new joint ministers in Johnson’s government might be able to help get his priorities over the line, or they might just end up writing letters to themselves.
Other double-hatters include Zac Goldsmith, who will report to the new Secretaries of State for International Development, Alok Sharma, and the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Theresa Villers; and Johnny Mercer, who will join the Ministry of Defence and the Cabinet Office as Minister for Veterans’ Affairs. A dozen such roles isn’t an all-time high—David Cameron had 16 joint ministers at the start of 2016—but it is an increase on May, who had 10 at the end of her administration, up from eight after the 2017 election. Ministers have held multiple roles at the same time before—Winston Churchill was Minister for Defence and Prime Minister throughout World War Two—but the idea of using them to bring together related policy areas in different departments has increased in recent years, ticking up steadily since the 1990s.
PMs can use these roles to signal their priorities to the Whitehall machine and make things happen. In 2015 Cameron appointed Richard Harrington as Minister for Syrian Refugees, working across the Home Office and the Departments for Local Government and International Development. This allowed Cameron to say that he was dealing with the issue and also created a focal point in government, bringing together all the relevant departments, to ensure progress was made on the refugee resettlement programme. Presumably Johnson is hoping for something similar from Mercer’s role at the MoD and Cabinet Office—creating a minister for veterans’ affairs and placing him in the relevant department as well as at the centre of government shows that this is an issue the PM wants to be seen to care about.
And many of those who have done this type of job before think that it is a good way of running things. Jo Swinson, the recently elected Liberal Democrat leader, was a junior minister at the business department during the coalition, responsible for equalities policy, an area shared with the Department for Culture. She told the Institute for Government’s Ministers Reflect programme that double-hatting helped “in preventing the silo mentality.”
These roles can also mean that ministers are better able to drive particular policy agendas than if they were solely working in one department. Nick Boles was Minister for Skills between 2014 and 2016, reporting to the secretaries of state for both business and education, and came up with the apprenticeship levy. He told the Institute that “neither secretary of state was my boss, completely,” which meant that “neither of my immediate bosses were in complete control of apprenticeships policy, and I knew that I could sell the idea to the chancellor and the PM.”
However, other ministers have found that holding two roles does not always make it easier for them to get things done. Damian Green, who worked across the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice during the coalition years, said that “most of all you are trying to work to two bosses who may well have two different agendas, and indeed there is an inherent tension between the home secretary and the justice secretary, whoever it is.”
As well as the difficulties of reporting to two bosses, being a joint minister can just mean more bureaucracy. Boles said that he resisted attempts by Whitehall to create extra structures around his joint role: “this idea of having two offices and a private office, all moving when the buildings were 150 yards apart, I just thought all that was nonsense.” Similarly, Green said that one of the challenges was “you have two sets of demands on your time, and all the things that ministers have to do that go beneath the radar—visits and speaking at slightly dull conferences and so on—there’s just twice as much of that.” Green also said that the system wasn’t always able to cope with the concept of joint ministers, leading to “surreal moments” like “one point where I was required to write to myself as one minister in a department to another, demanding that something happen.”
If the new prime minister is clear what he wants these joint ministers to achieve, they have a real opportunity to bring about meaningful change. Swinson pushed through her flagship shared parental leave policy, and Boles, with the support of George Osborne, created the apprenticeship levy. But these roles can also lead to confusion, duplication of work and extra bureaucracy. The new joint ministers in Johnson’s government might be able to help get his priorities over the line, or they might just end up writing letters to themselves.
