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Radical or Restricted?

Posted by Charlie Edwards at 11:53am on Friday, 29th September 2006

John Reid, supported by Tony Blair, has called for a radical step change in Britain’s security services. The review will look at the role of MI5, MI6, police counter-terrorist units and GCHQ. But how radical will this review be? One of the major criticisms of the current British response to the new security challenges we face has been the bureaucratic and organisational inertia, where policy has not been determined by the nature of the challenge, but by the nature of the policy tools available. Here are a few of my ideas:

 The Government should:

-          Create a national security strategy. The document would set out both current challenges facing the UK and future threats to our security.

-          Create a framework for collaboration (within the security strategy) between departments and agencies that work on security policy identifying a clear set of goals.

-          Make long term thinking a central tenet of a national security strategy

-          Ensure public value underpins the ;review' and informs the future recommendations.

-          Be open to recruiting future Directors of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ from outside the services.

-          Create public affairs departments for MI5 and MI6 to develop their ongoing communications strategies with key stakeholders.  

-          Create a Ministry of Justice which oversees the police service, prosecution service, prison service and probation service.

Comments

1
These ideas represent new thinking in an area of policy that has traditionally been screened off from public view.  The structure of the intelligence services has remained virtually unchanged since their founding in 1909. Yet the key security challenges of today's world are vastly different, both in terms of type and scale, from a century ago. I do not mean to argue for change on these grounds alone. Nevertheless, surely a review of our intelligence structures, and their efficacy, is long overdue. The performance of SIS in assessing intelligence about Iraq's WMD programmes, or the Security Service's performance in the 7/7 bombings, adds force to this argument. Perhaps the ideas presented here will help catalyse just such a debate.
Posted by Derek Leatherdale  at 7:05pm on Monday, 2nd October 2006

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