The Prime Minister’s Office

Abstract

Through the green baize door of the Cabinet Office is Number 10, the territory of the Prime Minister. This is now (since the mid-1970s) usually referred to as the Prime Minister’s Office. Altogether over 100 people work there, of whom about 30 are senior officials and advisers. The sections of the Prime Minister’s Office (c. 1990) are set out below:

• 1. Private Office (Secretariat)

  Principal Private Secretary and five Private Secretaries (Home, Foreign, Economic, Parliamentary, and one dealing with diary, engagements, correspondence with public, etc.).

• 2. Policy Unit

  Consists of about seven to eight members, including civil servants, academics and businessmen.

• 3. Press Office

  Headed under Mrs Thatcher by Bernard Ingham.

• 4. Political Office (which may include a ‘Chief of Staff’) Concerned with party and electoral matters, parliamentary relations (Parliamentary Private Secretary), and the Prime Minister’s constituency work as a member of Parliament (Political Secretary).

• 5. Special Advisers

  About seven to eight specialists from outside government.

• 6. Efficiency Unit

  Located in the Cabinet Office, but working with prime ministerial encouragement.

• 7. Kitchen Cabinet, or ‘Friends’

  Personal advisers and counsellors.