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Interviews with over 30 former government ministers, including Vince Cable, Liam Fox, Caroline Spelman and Andrew Mitchell, were published yesterday by the Institute for Government.

The first project of its kind, Ministers Reflect records the personal reflections of each ex-minster on what it takes to be effective in office, and the challenges they faced. The politicians answer a range of questions  – from the challenges of working with the Treasury, PM and special advisors, to the pressure of media scrutiny and delivering objectives – all related to effective governance.

The archive covers a diverse range of ministerial roles in office from 2010 to 2015, including Secretaries of State and Ministers of State. More will be added over the coming months and years, and the project will continue to evolve.

Peter Riddell, Director of the Institute for Government, said:

“The Ministers Reflect archive highlights what it takes to be an effective minister, the challenges ministers face, and what more can be done to support ministers in driving forward their policy objectives. All the former ministers interviewed offered a truly candid account of their time in office. We hope that this archive will be a valuable public resource for current and future generations of political leaders, advisers, and researchers.”

Winning an election is much different than leading the country – both require very different skill sets. Yet there are few resources which can help prepare politicians who find themselves in some of the most important jobs in government.

The Minister Reflect archive sheds some light on the personal and professional challenges ministers face, from appointment to dismissal. Every interview transcript forms part of a fully searchable online archive.

Highlights include:

• Vince Cable (former BIS Secretary of State) on special advisers: “I was a bit sceptical of special advisers at first. I think having been in government they are absolutely essential, acting as a kind of interface with the political parties and with other government departments and your political opposite numbers… if I wanted to agree something with Osborne I’d go and talk to him or more usually operate through our special advisers.”
• Andrew Mitchell (former DFID Secretary of State) on Parliament: “Many ministers think that the job would be glorious if it wasn’t for the fact that they had to keep on going down and explaining themselves to the House of Commons. But that’s how it should be. A good legislature keeps the executive straight and holds them to account. And actually, Speaker Bercow – who’s been roundly attacked from time to time – to be fair to him, he’s good at holding the executive to account.” 
• Chris Huhne (former DECC Secretary of State) on the Treasury: “The Treasury needs to be challenged far more often. It’s a department that has massive problems; its staff turnover is enormous. You know, any professional organisation that has a staff turnover like the Treasury’s should really be worried... One thing I wasn’t going to allow was the Treasury to cut something that was going to potentially allow most of North-West England to go up in a radioactive mushroom cloud.”
• Caroline Spelman (former Defra Secretary of State) on challenges: “We were on our own during the forests fiasco, and we were without a Permanent Secretary, a head of news, and a director of communications right throughout that period, which was really hard, especially for a brand new Secretary of State a few months into the job.”
• Liam Fox (former MOD Secretary of State) on challenges: “The most difficult thing to do was dealing with the loss of service personnel. Because I’d worked as a doctor with the military before I went into politics, I had a particularly strong emotional affinity with the armed forces and therefore I did take it quite personally when we lost service personnel…I liked to have a picture of the person that I was writing about before I would write the letter because I think that it always made you remember it was an individual not a name.”
• Alan Duncan (former DFID minister) on the role of the PM: “I do not know how a Prime Minister can be Prime Minister without meeting the full ministerial team for each department from time to time in the same way a chairman or chief executive would meet his marketing department or his HR department or his finance department. So I just think the absence of that managerial structure means Number 10 becomes very insular, less well informed and dependent only on its immediate officials and those who have shoulder to shoulder proximity with the PM.”
• David Willetts (former BIS minister) on the Cabinet Office: “It’s not accountable. It imposes absurd things on you. It then runs away when things don’t work out and always blames you. It is a terrible department. Over-manned, too many ministers, and a lot of time was spent essentially trying to stop the Cabinet Office messing up things we were doing.”

For more information, please contact Nicole Valentinuzzi on 07850313791.

Notes to editors

1. The full ‘Ministers Reflect’ website can be found here:www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/ministers-reflect.
2. The archive is not representative of all ministers. Only those in office for more than one year were chosen to be included.

The Institute for Government is an independent charity founded in 2008 to help make government more effective.