Thread by @SamCoatesTimes

Sir Mark Sedwill is the most important person you’ve never heard of.

He combines National Security Advisor and now Cabinet Secretary. Finding out how he’s shaping government is the key to understanding where Britain goes next.

And some of his ideas may prove controversial

What follows is from a Civil Service World writeup of a roundtable sponsored by PA Consulting with a load of permanent secretaries.

(Striking involvement of PA Consulting...)

(Here’s what google suggests should be the link but doesn’t work)
civilserviceworld.com/articles/featu…

Key points:

Here Sir Mark sets out his “Fusion Doctrine”, his own vision of the future which he first set out in National Security Review last year

Sedwill ally and DIT perm sec Antonia Romeo here suggests looking more about links between using defence to “open the door to new opportunities”

👀

Sedwill here says that by linking foreign policy issues and trade, we can get better trade deals

(What trade offs? Are the public or private? Who wins, who loses?👀👀)

Here the MOD bod at the roundtable enthusiastic about the link between foreign policy and defence

Sedwill reveals there will be a “five year window” for trade deals after brexit and “we’re not going to be able to have totally frictionless trade with everybody” 😢

Sedwill reveals change in the civil service hard 😨

Romeo reveals civil service pay is a massive barrier 😬

Takeaways from Sedwill-Romeo event

- This fusion doctrine - mixing trade and foreign policy and defence - makes Sir Mark Sedwill personally very very powerful

- What are the tradeoffs? Will we ever ever find them out?

Takeaways 2

- Where does this leave Dfid? If every other element foreign policy can be traded off under “fusion”, will aid continue to be protected as a separate carve out?

- Sir Mark gives impression he is defaulting to security narrative over economic narrative - is HMT wary?

- Aren’t there big risks in “joint iniatives with the private sector” to pay people more. Don’t companies like BAe have a disproportionate influence already, ask some

- Doesn’t this all basically only work under a Tory government and not a Corbyn-led Labour one?

TL:DR Sir Mark Sedwill is the most important person you’ve never heard of, and sounds like he’s going to get even more important

So read up about him now

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Sedw…

👀

Oh one more thing on PA consulting, who hosted the roundtable.

It appears on this

designbuild-network.com/projects/gchq/

they have done work for GCHQ