One of the common criticisms governments make of oppositions is that they're inexperienced, and have no idea how to be ministers or run the country (so its better to stick with the status quo). But why don't they know? Changes of government are and ought to be a regular feature in a parliamentary democracy like ours, but weirdly there's no real preparation for them for the people concerned. There's no training course on "how to be a minister" for MPs, for example - even though it would seem to be an obvious necessity which would help improve governance overall. While the Cabinet Manual is public, there isn't a public "how-to" guide so would-be Ministers can prepare themselves for the job and see what it entails.
There is however a private one. DPMC publishes an Induction Handbook for New Ministers, outlining basic constitutional responsibilities, the nuts and bolts of a ministerial office, and how to do the job. I heard about this earlier this year, and requested it under the OIA. DPMC initially released a redacted version, but after a complaint to the Ombudsman, you can read the whole thing here:
What did DPMC try and hide? The anodyne introduction, basic explanations of the role, an obvious statement about social media and hats, basic HR and time management advice, a sentence telling ministers to ask their agencies if they got along with Treasury, and some basic stuff about setting policy priorities and compromising on them. All of this was withheld as "free and frank", with an implicit claim that its release would inhibit similar advice in future. Which both suggests a fairly extreme level of paranoia and self-consciousness about even the most banal advice, but also a complete failure to consider the public interest. There are no deep, dark secrets here. Instead, DPMC seems to have complete contempt for the public, and believe that we have no right to know even the most basic and obvious information about how this country is governed.
(They also tried to withhold the fact that no cellphones are allowed in the cabinet room, something we all knew anyway, as prejudicial to national security...)
As noted above, I think this sort of information being public would be hugely beneficial to governance in this country, and help ease changes of government. It would also help the public understand how our government actually works, and what actually goes on in a minsiterial office, and what they can and can't do. I am shocked that it is not prominently and proactively published. Who does DPMC's policy of secrecy serve, other than officials wanting to "break in" and dominate new and inexperienced ministers?
Oh.
Anyway, it's public now, and hopefully MPs will use it in future to prepare themselves for office. While they're at it, their staff might also want to look at DIA's Ministerial Adviser Deskfile, which is a similar guide for new Ministerial Advisers.
