We’ve asked top experts what they thought about the cabinet reshuffle this week. Richard Mottram writes that the modest scale of the 2013 reshuffle is welcome recognition of the dangers in too much Ministerial churn. Claire Annesley and Francesca Gains argue that there has been little change to the record of weak representation of women in the government. James Mitchell writes that the sacking of the Scottish Secretary marks a shift towards a more aggressive style of campaigning from the Scotland Office to match that adopted by the Better Together campaign group on the ground in Scotland. Eunice Goes argues that the reshuffle of Labour’s shadow cabinet has one particular trademark: it was “Milibandite” in form and substance.

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Sir Richard Mottram:

This week’s Ministerial reshuffle was a media non-event. But its limited scope was good news for those who care about the effectiveness of the British government.

The short time in any one post of many Ministers encourages a career strategy of making a quick, visible mark, often by revisiting your predecessor’s approach, rather than encouraging continuity in policy and delivery. Just as the Minister has acquired the depth of understanding to make sense of the job and to be able to make a real impact, he or she moves on. The previous Labour government repeatedly showed how not to do it in this respect, with short-term political considerations often trumping leadership and management considerations in some of the largest departments.

The present government has not been immune from these pressures- witness the removal of all the Commons-based Health Ministers in one go in the 2012 reshuffle; or that they are on their third Transport Secretary and their third public health Minister; or that some senior Ministers of State reshuffled in 2012 have now left the government just one year later, which makes no sense. In truth the way Ministers are appointed and career developed is remarkably amateurish given their responsibilities. But the modest scale of the 2013 reshuffle is welcome recognition of the dangers in too much Ministerial churn.

Sir Richard Mottram is a former Permanent Secretary, a visiting Professor at LSE, and chair of the Better Government Initiative.

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Claire Annesley and Francesca Gains:

Though billed as a reshuffle to boost the position of women on the front benches, a closer look suggests very little change to the record of weak representation of women in the Coalition Government. There are still just four women in Cabinet, or five if Baroness Warsi’s part time attendance is included. This is still a long way off Cameron’s aspiration that one third of his Government would be women by 2015 and puts the UK a long way down the ranking when compared internationally. With the October 2013 reshuffle, four women entered Government (Baroness Krammer, Baroness Jolly, Jane Ellison and Claire Perry) and three women left (Baroness Garden, Chloe Smith, and Baroness Hanham), meaning that overall now 23 of 128 members of government are women, or  just 18%. The reshuffle did see some notable advances for women in the appointment of Nicky Morgan as Economic Secretary in the Treasury (where there had been no women for a few years), Anna Soubry as Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Ministry of Defence (the first ever female defence minister from the House of Commons) and Esther McVey as Minister of State for Employment in the Department of Work and Pensions. But four government departments – Ministry of Justice, DEFRA, Scottish Office and Cabinet Office – still have no policy input from women, and two female members of government – Baroness Warsi and Jo Swinson – are split between two departments.

This static picture of women’s representation in UK government is, we would argue, unlikely to change much between now and 2015 – despite Cameron’s recent decision that he is a feminist after all. Ahead of the next election we might expect to see further promotions and the elevation of some women now at Minister of State to join the cabinet, but it seems increasingly unlikely that Cameron will be able to meet the target of one third female representation. He is hampered by his own party whose selectorate disliked the strategy of a gender balanced A List and did not select women to contest winnable seats. The result is that the pool of women MPs from which Cameron can select and promote talent into government office is small – just 16% of all Tory MPs. Cameron can boost his supply of prospective ministers by awarding portfolios to members of the Lords – indeed now 30% of women in government are Baronesses not MPs.

Cameron’s failure to promote women to government – whether through unwillingness or inability – is not merely a question of image. It is likely to have severe electoral consequences for the Conservatives come 2015. As we have argued before, low numbers of women in government office (and their complete absence from some departments) is part of the reason why the Coalition’s policy offer for women has been weak, with evidence of the detrimental effect of austerity on female jobs, benefit cuts and services heavily used by women growing by the month. This in turn accounts for much of the collapse of women’s support for the Tories, regularly expressed in opinion polls.

Claire Annesley is Professor of Politics at the University of Manchester (@ClaireAnnesley). Francesca Gains is Professor of Public Policy, also at the University of Manchester (@FrancescaGains).

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James Mitchell:

Coalition with the Liberal Democrats has proved particularly helpful to the Conservatives in Scotland. In 2010, the Tories would have had to appoint their only Scottish MP to the post of Secretary of State for Scotland or provoke a predictable outcry by either abandoning the post as a separate entity or appointing someone from outside Scotland. The Scotland Office describes its remit as, ‘We ensure the smooth working of the devolution settlement in Scotland. We represent Scottish interests within the UK government and we represent the UK government in Scotland.’ This has been a controversial remit since devolution with some turf wars, especially between John Reid at the Scotland Office, and Donald Dewar as First Minister for Scotland. When the SNP came to office in Holyrood in 2007, successive Labour Scottish Secretaries were criticised by opponents for using as a platform in party political battleground.

With 11 of Scotland’s 59 MPs and having served in coalition with Labour in the Scottish Parliament from 1999-2007, the Liberal Democrats were a useful detoxifying agent for the Tories north of the border. Mr Cameron essentially devolved responsibility for Scotland in Whitehall to the Liberal Democrats. Danny Alexander was appointed Scottish Secretary.  Mr Alexander was a well-known figure in Westminster at the time but hardly known in Scotland outside his Highland constituency. He replaced David Laws as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after the latter’s resignation. He was replaced at the Scotland Office by long-time rival in the small world of Scottish Liberal Democrat politics by Michael Moore.

The return of the Scottish National Party with an overall majority in Holyrood raised the Scottish Question up Whitehall’s agenda. Mr Moore’s style has been described as a ‘bit too chillaxed’, by Fraser Nelson of the Spectator, reflecting a common view that a more combative style was needed in the year running up to Scotland’s independence referendum. Alistair Carmichael’s appointment is expected to mark a shift towards a more aggressive style of campaigning from the Scotland Office to match that adopted by the Better Together campaign group on the ground in Scotland.

In 2010, Alistair Carmichael, the new Scottish Secretary, told Holyrood magazine that there would be no Scotland Office if his party got into power. It would be replaced by a Department of the Nations and Regions, ‘I think there is a job to be done but having the Scotland Office is not the right way to do it because it should be the clearing house between government in Edinburgh and government in London but now it is just a focal point for conflict.’ He now finds himself holding an office he recently argued should be abolished with the task of leading the attack from London on the SNP and its goal of independence.

James Mitchell holds an ESRC Scotland Fellowship and the Chair in Public Policy, Edinburgh University.

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Eunice Goes:

The reshuffle of Labour’s shadow cabinet has one particular trademark: it was “Milibandite” in form and substance. As such, it was a reshuffle that reflected Ed Miliband’s ecumenical approach to politics. The different trends and groupings of the party continue to be represented in the shadow cabinet, including the so-called ‘Blairite tendency’. Indeed, the Blairites of the shadow cabinet – Stephen Twigg, Jim Murphy and Liam Byrne were simply demoted. But they were demoted not because they are ‘Blairites’ but mostly because they are not exactly enthusiasts of Miliband’s vision.

This leads us to the second aspect of Labour’s reshuffle. As Miliband position within the party was strengthened by the positive reaction to his conference speech and to the row with the Daily Mail about his father, he feels that now he is in a position where he can move the party closer to his vision. And that means promoting people who support his project. By bringing in new (a third of the shadow cabinet was only elected in 2010), younger and more female faces to the frontbench Ed Multiband is also making a clean break with past. New faces such as Rushanara Ali, Gloria di Pietro and Tristram Hunt send a clear message. Regardless of the position of these Labour politicians on Blairism and its legacy, these are names that are untainted by the record of New Labour. Perhaps more interestingly, many of the new members of the Shadow cabinet are Labour politicians who are highly supportive of one aspect of Miliband’s agenda that is still in the making but that has the potential of becoming one of the most interesting trademarks of Milibandism: the revival of the tradition of ethical socialism that challenges the dominant role of the markets in society, is critical of the bureaucratic and unresponsive state and defends more democracy and devolution of power as engines for egalitarian politics. This vision does not have the full support of the Keynesians and centralisers of the shadow Treasury, so perhaps filling the Shadow Cabinet with proponents of a more communitarian vision of social-democracy was quite a cunning move.

Dr Eunice Goes is an Associate Professor at Richmond University. Her research looks at political parties and ideologies and she is writing a book on the Labour Party under Ed Miliband. Contact: eunice.goes@richmond.ac.uk

Note:  This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the British Politics and Policy blog, nor of the London School of Economics. Please read our comments policy before posting.