The recent botched government reshuffle reveals an alarming lack of succession planning, says Peter Oborne

Many government reshuffles have been botched but it is very hard indeed to think of a Cabinet reshuffle as badly messed up as Tony Blairs this summer. Part of the problem was that the wrong people were appointed to the wrong jobs. But the worst of the difficulty came when it emerged that the prime minister did not even know what the jobs actually were in the first place.

The Downing Street spokes-man was unable to say what the responsibilities of ministers were in the wake of the reshuffle, and did not even know whether long-established government depart- ments the Scottish and Welsh offices would continue to exist.

In the end a kind of free-for-all developed in which cabinet ministers went out and seized powers of their own accord under the eyes of Downing Street. Everyone agreed that it was a nightmare.

But the same sort of thing happens every year, though on a smaller scale, at Westminster. One of the major differences between government and business is the sheer amateurism of government in contrast with the private sector.

In well-managed public companies key appointments are planned years and quite often decades in advance. In large corporates, leadership candidates are picked out in their twenties. They are carefully groomed by being given head office experience for a time, then autonomy at the head of one of the large operating subsidiaries.

Exactly the same process takes place in large organisations such as the British Army or the Foreign Office, though not very often the National Health Service, which is one of the reasons why this massive structure is still such a shambles.

Even when a key figure is forced to quit because of health or other reasons, the unexpected emergency is managed in a calm and collected way. Headhunters are brought in, and plans are put on hold before the situation is sorted out.

In government, by contrast, this kind of planning virtually never takes place. To give one example, when Clare Short suddenly resigned from the Government after the

Iraq War, she was replaced by Baroness Amos, at that time a very junior Foreign Office minister (see Human Resources, July/August). Her appointment was a sudden and arbitrary choice, governed by the need for a short-term fix rather than long-term thinking.

To return to this summers reshuffle, Blair was only confronted with the problem that Alan Milburn was determined to stand down as health secretary at the very last moment. The prime minister was finally told three days before the reshuffle itself. Thats not in itself Blairs fault, but had he been in command of his senses at this stage, he could have delayed his decision. Part of the job of cabinet secretary Sir Andrew Turnbull is to act as the Governments human resources director. He should have put a brake on things and urged Blair to take things coolly over the Milburn dilemma.

Health secretary is probably the biggest job in the Cabinet besides the chancellor of the Exchequer these days; and although it counts lower in the pecking order than foreign secretary, in practical terms it matters far more.

Milburn was also arguably being groomed for the Blair succession. For the past two years he has sat on Cherie Blairs right during the leaders speech at the Labour party conference. As party kremlinologists note, this is the post always occupied by the current favourite with Blair.

In a well-managed company, the Milburn crisis would have been dealt with calmly. Non-executive directors would have been brought in to advise. The problem would have been thought through carefully. Above all there would have been no panic measures.

Not so in the Blair government. The decision was made almost at once and almost by a process of trial and error. Blair spent a maximum of two or three hours dealing with what was in practice a massive personnel crisis facing the British Government. He made his decision at a time when he was facing huge problems on two or three other fronts, above all Iraq. It is not surprising that the cabinet reshuffle was a disaster.

peter.oborne@haynet.com

Peter Oborne is political editor of The Spectator