Call for Evidence

The UK faces an increasing number of serious immediate and long-term strategic challenges and opportunities which require a coordinated, sustainable, response across Government, with cross-party support, and often in collaboration with our international partners. The pace of change and the connectivity between issues are always accelerating, making it harder but also more urgent to plan for the future, for what can be foreseen and for the unexpected. Goals and solutions are often some way in the future, and require continuing strategic leadership across several Parliaments.

While Select Committees scrutinise the activities of their respective departments, departmental structures are not always conducive decision making on many serious strategic issues. It can be difficult for Committees to access information about how these challenges are being addressed across Government.

Select Committees recognise the need for addressing strategic challenges on a cross-party basis, and show an increasing appetite for it. Select Committees have a role to play in promoting and overseeing strategy-making and delivery by the conduct of their inquiries and recommendations. Better scrutiny of strategic thinking by Parliament will contribute to better strategic thinking within Government.

To that end, the Committee has launched an inquiry into the effectiveness of Select Committee scrutiny of strategic thinking in Whitehall. The Committee is keen to seek views on –

• Examples of best practice of strategic thinking in Government, including:
• How well Government identifies strategic opportunities as well as strategic risks and threats
• How effectively Government uses internal and external challenge; how feedback loops are used to ensure that lessons from delivery are utilised when developing future strategic plans;
• How No. 10 and the Cabinet Office should best lead on these issues across government.
• What government should publish or explain about its overall strategic concept.
• What additional machinery of Government, knowledge and skills are necessary to support strategic thinking and effective strategy-making and delivery, both within individual departments, and across two or more departments, and how strategy and strategic thinking can be sustained by building consensus between the main parties;
• Which governments around the world demonstrate best practice in strategic thinking;
• How Select Committees consider strategic questions, including any recent examples of scrutiny of Government strategic plans and/or their delivery; and elements of Government strategy and delivery that are repeatedly identified by Select Committees as effective or deficient;
• The engagement of individual departments, and Whitehall as a whole, with Select Committees on strategic challenges, including through the provision of information necessary for effective scrutiny;
• What additional resources, parliamentary procedure, knowledge and skills are necessary to support effective Select Committee scrutiny of strategic thinking and effective strategy-making, as well as monitoring implementation of any Government action in response;
• How other parliaments around the world are engaging with the strategic thinking of their respective governments.

The Committee is intending to explore a small number of case studies (such as the three listed below), where the response to strategic challenges reaches across departments. We are particularly keen to receive submissions that reflect on the challenges of delivering:

• The UK’s net zero commitments while maintaining energy security;
• AI-driven economic growth while managing the impact of AI on the labour market and the safety of humanity; and
• The UK’s place in the 21st century international order, while balancing security and prosperity

The main aim of our inquiry is not make policy recommendations on these issues, but to explore how strategic thinking on these issues is managed within Government.  This will help understanding of the general approach towards strategy-making within Government.  We aim to make recommendations about:

• how to improve strategic thinking in government;
• how Committees can deliver effective scrutiny of strategic thinking;
• how Committees can exercise ‘forward accountability’ (holding government to account for learning from experience and planning better for the future);
• how Committees can encourage positive engagement between Ministers and Committees in this area.

Submissions are invited by 30 November 2023.