Cross-Departmental Taskforce Discovers Innovative Solution to Strategy Surplus: More Strategies
Revolutionary Approach to Administrative Excellence
Whitehall has unveiled its most ambitious bureaucratic undertaking since the establishment of the Department for Establishing Departments, with the creation of a cross-departmental taskforce dedicated to managing the government's impressive accumulation of strategic documents.
The Strategic Strategy Implementation Oversight Group (SSIOG) held its inaugural meeting yesterday in a windowless room in the Cabinet Office, where twelve senior civil servants gathered to address what officials describe as "a backlog situation regarding our backlog management capabilities."
According to internal minutes leaked to this publication, the four-hour session began with a heated forty-five-minute discussion about whether the group's own formation represented a fundamental conflict of interest, given that it was itself a strategic response to the problem of strategic responses.
Scoping the Scope of the Scoping Exercise
"We recognised early on that we needed to be absolutely clear about what we were trying to achieve before we could determine how to achieve it," explained Senior Responsible Owner Jennifer Hartwell-Pembroke, who has overseen seventeen major reviews since joining the civil service in 2019.
"The first step was obviously to commission a scoping study to establish the optimal parameters for our strategic framework development process. We can't just rush into these things."
The scoping study, which will examine the feasibility of examining the existing strategies, is expected to report back within eighteen months, assuming the procurement process for selecting a consultancy firm to advise on the selection process proceeds smoothly.
Cataloguing Success
Preliminary investigations have already yielded impressive results. The taskforce has identified 247 distinct strategies, action plans, and roadmaps produced since 2015, covering everything from digital transformation to workplace wellbeing to the strategic management of strategic management processes.
Particularly noteworthy discoveries include the 2018 "Framework for Future Frameworks," which was itself superseded by the 2020 "Meta-Strategic Approach to Strategic Approaches," and the curiously prophetic 2017 document titled "Preparing for the Inevitable Accumulation of Preparation Documents."
"What we're seeing here is a rich tapestry of governmental ambition," noted Dr. Malcolm Threadneedle from the Institute for Administrative Studies, who has spent the last six years researching the research into government research capabilities.
"The sheer volume of strategic thinking demonstrates an unprecedented commitment to thinking strategically about strategic thinking."
Implementation Challenges
The taskforce has encountered some early obstacles, primarily centred around the question of whether implementing a strategy to address unimplemented strategies might itself require a separate implementation strategy.
"We're very much alive to the circular nature of the challenge," confirmed Hartwell-Pembroke during a brief telephone interview conducted while she attended a meeting about scheduling future meetings.
"That's precisely why we've established three working groups: one to examine the existing strategies, one to develop new strategic approaches to existing strategies, and one to oversee the other two working groups. It's a belt-and-braces approach."
The working groups are expected to report their findings to a steering committee, which will then advise the taskforce on the optimal format for presenting recommendations to the cross-departmental oversight panel.
Timeline for the Timeline
When pressed for specific deliverables, Hartwell-Pembroke remained cautiously optimistic. "We're absolutely on track to deliver a preliminary assessment of our assessment capabilities within the agreed timeframe, once we've agreed on what that timeframe should be."
"The timeline for establishing the timeline will be circulated in due course, pending approval from the appropriate governance structures."
Sources close to the project suggest that "due course" typically ranges from six to eighteen months, depending on whether the circulation process requires its own strategic framework.
Expert Analysis
Professor Sarah Wickham-Jones from the Centre for Public Administration Excellence praised the initiative's ambitious scope. "This represents exactly the kind of joined-up thinking we need to address the fragmented approach to addressing fragmentation in government."
"The fact that they're taking time to properly consider how to properly consider the problem shows real strategic maturity."
Meanwhile, the National Audit Office has confirmed it will be monitoring the taskforce's progress, though it stressed that any formal review of the review process would need to be reviewed first.
Future Prospects
As the SSIOG prepares for its second meeting—scheduled for sometime after the procurement process for meeting scheduling software has been completed—there are already signs that the approach is working.
Two additional cross-departmental groups have been established to support the main taskforce: one focused on stakeholder engagement strategies for strategy stakeholder engagement, and another dedicated to communications planning for the communication of planning communications.
"This is exactly the kind of comprehensive, systematic approach that delivers real results," concluded Hartwell-Pembroke. "By the time we're finished, we'll have a strategy for everything."
The taskforce's next major milestone will be the production of a discussion paper outlining the key themes for the eventual green paper that will inform the white paper proposing the framework for the final strategy.
Progress remains very much on track.