Report

Ministers reflect on the Treasury

This report from UK think tank the Institute for Government explores the Treasury’s role and the tensions it creates across Whitehall.

With the 2025 budget just days away, this Ministers Reflect report on the Treasury offers candid insights from former Treasury ministers – including four chancellors in Jeremy Hunt, Philip Hammond, Alistair Darling and Ken Clarke – on how the department operates and influences government.

Drawing on over a decade of interviews with over 150 ministers, the report explores the Treasury’s role and the tensions it creates across Whitehall. Insights focus on the Treasury’s dominance tensions with priorities of the centre and other departments’ relationships across government expertise and capacity.

The report argues that while the Treasury plays a vital role in safeguarding public finances, reforms are needed. Ministers should rebalance power at the centre by empowering the prime minister through a new Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to strengthen collaboration across departments, especially during budgets and spending reviews, including by setting ‘priorities for government’ frameworks that incentivise departments to work together to improve the use of expertise and evidence to inform policy by strengthening handover processes and improving internal knowledge dissemination structures.