14 December 2007
Where next for the IPPR? Judy Hirst talks to its new co-directors about a more consensual style of politics and why two thinking heads are better than one
'We do like to have some fun,' grins Lisa Harker, one half of the two-woman team that has recently taken the helm at the Institute for Public Policy Research, aka 'Number 10's favourite think-tank'. 'You can't afford to take yourselves too seriously.'
We are seated, rather intimately, in an office roughly the size of a Portaloo, in the institute's ramshackle building near London's Covent Garden. Carey Oppenheim, the IPPR's other new co-director, strolls in a few minutes late, looking supremely relaxed. She's just been having a massage.
Fun? Massages? What on earth is going on at the organisation universally regarded as a transit camp for government policy wonks and for nothing if not taking itself and its bounteous ideas extremely seriously?
This, after all, is the outfit that, until relatively recently, was run by the immensely earnest Matthew Taylor: a man for whom cracking a smile comes about as naturally as it does for Gordon Brown. Taylor went on to run Tony Blair's policy unit, before moving into a more cerebral role as chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts.
His IPPR successor, Nick Pearce, has trodden a similar path, albeit for a different administration: he is now head of strategic policy at Number 10. Richard Brooks, until recently the institute's ubiquitous spokesman on public services, is now doing the job for real, as Ed Balls' senior policy adviser at the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
IPPR directors tend to be hyperactive, workaholic types, who like playing with the big boys. They move with ease in and out of government, and they don't do frivolous; at least, not in public.
So what are Oppenheim and Harker thinking of, sharing the top job, breezing into the office for just half a week each and finding plenty of time for family, friends and outside interests?
In case anyone gets the wrong idea, it's worth pointing out that neither are slouches when it comes to walking the corridors of power. They have each worked for Numbers 10 and 11 and various government departments, as senior policy advisers and independent consultants.
Oppenheim played a key role in developing the Child Trust Fund and government policy on flexible working and maternity pay. Harker, who used to work for the BBC, was appointed 'child poverty czar' at the Department for Work and Pensions.
Both have a lengthy track record at voluntary organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group and the Day Care Trust. People in the childcare sector are delighted they now have not one, but two, friends in such an influential place.
Along the way the two women have job-shared, collaborated and written books together; an arrangement that has allowed Oppenheim to spend more time with her two, now teenage, daughters, and enabled Harker to pursue an impressive range of charitable and leisure activities. In short, to have a life.
And why not? Not only are they living up to the family-friendly, work-life balance rhetoric of the IPPR and other progressive think-tanks, but they believe they are helping to develop a new style of working and of leadership.
'We're moving away from organisations having to be run by one big figurehead,' says Oppenheim. 'The future is about more flexibility and more team working. Two heads are definitely better than one.'
This, they claim, is as true for 'thought leadership' as any other field. 'There's something much more creative about working this way,' says Harker. 'There's more opportunity to share your workings out, and your mistakes and reservations with another person. You get twice the amount of energy. But it only works if you know each other well enough, and share the same values, which we do.'
But what about the practicalities? With more than 60 staff, an army of interns, and a hectic round of publications and events on everything from climate change and public service reform to migration, security and citizenship, how does their power-sharing management style work out in practice?
It's early days (they took over in September) but the two appear pretty relaxed. Joint e-mails, separate line management responsibilities, handover and 'downloading' times each week: they seem to have the technicalities sussed.
A much bigger challenge and one faced by other centre-Left think-tanks (most, coincidentally, now led by women) is how to reshape and reposition the IPPR to fit a rapidly changing political climate.
A real problem for an organisation that has been so closely associated with New Labour is how to reinvent itself when the government is falling out of favour. Or, as one close associate put it, how not to go the way of the Adam Smith Institute after Thatcher's demise?
Harker and Oppenheim have previous form in this regard. Both, at different times, have played a senior role at the institute (between 1998 and 2003 they were separately deputy directors). And both, in their earlier careers, were well used to working with Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. A former colleague describes them as very independent-minded.
'It's a much more contested political environment than when we were last here,' admits Harker. 'There's been a shift to the centre-Left in the locus of politics, and there's more political competition over traditional IPPR issues like poverty and climate change.'
Meanwhile, Brown's vision is 'not being well-articulated', she says. The elements of it social justice, a more equal society, a new style of politics are there in the background, but 'there's a desperate need to get it across'.
For the IPPR, New Labour's travails are a problem but also an opportunity. 'It's a chance to engage with a wider range of players,' says Oppenheim. 'We want to be known for the quality of our research, and our ability to anticipate trends.'
Their work with the LibDems and Channel 4's Dispatches programme on migration, and with the Conservatives' Quality of life report, are examples of this broader, cross-party approach. They want to work more with local authorities and other practitioners beyond Whitehall.
They hope to bring a more reflective, forward-looking style of work, says Oppenheim. 'Governments mainly think short term. But the IPPR is well-placed to do the more strategic thinking. For instance, our Future Schools project is asking where the curriculum, the pupils and the workforce will be in ten years' time.'
The 'favourite think-tank' badge was always a bit of misnomer, insists Harker. 'It's a question of context. You have to understand political reality, and engage with it.'
But is this pragmatic approach enough to mark out the IPPR from rivals such as the Social Market Foundation and Demos at a time when, as they acknowledge, the centre-Left is suffering from political fatigue?
Ever the optimists, they see this as an opportunity, too. With an election a while off, and the government 'searching around for things to do', they maintain the IPPR is in a strong position to contribute to the process of political renewal: the vision thing.
However, Harker emphasises a more prosaic question facing many UK think-tanks. Unlike in the US, there is little in the way of secure funding underpinning their work and not much of a secure existence outside of the governments and political fashions of the day.
You can see why a lot of energy is being devoted to repositioning and why, in between the admirable work-life balancing act, the pair of them will be spending a fair bit of time with their spreadsheets.
But not too much, we hope.
PFdec2007
