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The NSC is chaired by the Prime Minister himself – a keen consumer of intelligence. Other members include the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary, the Defence Secretary and the International Development Secretary. Bringing the intelligence and policy worlds closer together, the JIC Chairman and the heads of all three intelligence agencies also regularly attend meetings (as does the Chief of Defence Staff – although the Chief of Defence Intelligence unfortunately does not). Unlike its various predecessors (under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown), the formal NSC meets regularly every week. It is supported by an official-level committee, known as the National Security Council (Official). In addition to attending the weekly NSC, the JIC Chairman also attends the NSC(O). The new format institutionalises the relationship between intelligence and policy. It formalises instant policy impact.

Unsurprisingly, Cameron’s reforms have affected the workings of the JIC and the Joint Intelligence Organisation (JIO) more broadly. Peter Hennessy, a particularly experienced Whitehall watcher, has gone as far as to argue that the impact has been

The NSC raises important questions about the committee’s role and future direction. Does it slightly eclipse the JIC? Is the JIC in danger of being forced to take a back seat? Or does such institutionalised contact with senior policymakers leave the JIC in enviable shape? Whitehall insiders are quick to point towards the latter, saying that the two bodies complement each other well and that the NSC has given the JIC a new lease of life. 2

The JIC was not in great health in the 2000s. Tony Blair was uninterested in intelligence unless it conformed to his world view. With the spectre of Iraq hanging heavily, the JIC found it difficult to engage the Prime Minister in its work. Even before the WMD fiasco, Blair’s informal ‘sofa government’ style posed a problem for the 21st-century JIC. His Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, has since dismissed the committee as producing ‘lowest-common-denominator-type reports, hedging their bets and failing to give a clear steer in any direction’. Accordingly, some policymakers sought to bypass the JIC altogether and receive more raw intelligence. Unsurprisingly, the JIC learnt different lessons from the Butler review. It was keen to limit Blair’s access to this raw material. 3

The JIC fared little better under Gordon Brown – another broadly uninterested consumer. He removed the committee’s long-standing remit for the day-to-day coordination of the intelligence community. In late 2009, Brown also abolished the long-standing Permanent Secretaries Committee on the Intelligence Services, which oversaw the dialogue between intelligence priorities and budgets, transferring its remit to the national security machinery. In the same year, JIC meetings temporarily became fortnightly for the first time in its history. Even after weekly sessions were resumed, attendance by the heads of MI6 and GCHQ remained patchy. The committee had lost some of its shine. 4

Successive chiefs of MI6 reported that the JIC’s status had diminished. In November 2008 for example, John Scarlett made it clear that ‘the JIC priorities are not gospel as far as SIS is concerned’. 5 Just under two years later, his successor, John Sawers, publicly downgraded the JIC further still. He described the committee’s role as merely offering ‘context’ to intelligence information. Sawers went on to emphasise that he did not answer to the JIC, reporting instead to the NSC. 6

The NSC reforms have since redefined the JIC’s role and place within Whitehall. This, however, was not without problems and, although welcoming the creation of the NSC, the Intelligence and Security Committee expressed concerns. How would the JIC fit into the new system? One particularly muddy area involved setting priorities and requirements, for which the JIC had long held responsibility. Cameron’s NSC and National Security Strategy potentially challenged this. Indeed, the latter included a separate assessment of priority threats, whilst, towards the end of 2010, the JIC was instructed merely to ‘contribute to the formulation’ of national intelligence requirements. 7 Meanwhile, the chief of MI6 declared that ‘we take our direction from the National Security Council’. 8 It should be noted, however, that these National Security Strategy priorities were compiled with assistance from certain JIC members and the JIO more broadly.

The situation remained complicated. In addition to the NSC and (theoretically) the JIC, intelligence agencies also took direction from the Strategic Defence and Security Review, their own existing agency strategic objectives, and Treasury targets. With no single tasking process, the potential for contradiction and confusion was rife. 9

A review was desperately needed. In January 2011, therefore, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, commissioned a report into the situation. They asked Alex Allan, the JIC Chairman, and National Security Adviser Peter Ricketts (himself a former JIC Chairman) to examine the impact of the NSC on the workings of the JIC. The task was conducted by Paul Rimmer, chief of the Assessments Staff, and Ciaran Martin, then of the Cabinet Office’s Intelligence and Security Secretariat. 10

Rimmer and Martin’s report was issued ten months later and signed off by the Prime Minister himself. Its recommendations are reproduced below. As a result of the review, the JIC now operates on two levels: principals and sub-principals. Senior members (the principals), including the heads of the intelligence agencies, meet only monthly (although they can attend other meetings if they so wish). In theory they focus on key issues relevant to the National Security Council. By contrast, the sub-principals (less senior members or representatives of the directors) meet more regularly, supposedly to discuss papers of less immediate concern, issues of interest to one particular department, and tactical short-term issues. Insiders believe the new practice works well, albeit slightly differently from how the review initially suggested. In reality, the deputy-level meetings tackle the normal JIC agenda (including the important issues), whilst the principal level takes a more strategic view.

Some context here is necessary. This is not the first time in the committee’s history that the JIC has operated on two levels. In the late 1940s and into the mid-1950s the JIC was also split into director- and deputy-director-level meetings. The same departments were represented on both, simply at a slightly lower level. It operated in a similar manner to that prescribed by Rimmer and Martin.

The new arrangements potentially undermine community cohesion, which has traditionally been a vital but intangible function of the JIC. The presence of the agency heads at meetings is useful in binding the joint intelligence community together – so important in the committee- and consensus-oriented British system. It remains to be seen whether monthly meetings will attenuate this long-held function. One could also argue that the agency heads’ presence at the NSC undermines the role of the JIC Chairman. It is, of course, the latter’s responsibility to represent the voice of the intelligence community. NSC meetings do, however, start with an overview of the latest JIC intelligence, following which the Prime Minister and others ask questions and offer feedback. The agency heads are there in an operational capacity and in case they are asked to take action.

Whilst there is an argument that agency heads are too busy for both committees, this is also about natural human behaviour. The heads of the three security and intelligence agencies ‘are in attendance at the NSC and are invited to speak, and they speak frequently’. Although they always enjoyed good access to Downing Street, the NSC has given them greater opportunity to talk to ministers and the Prime Minister. Naturally, they prefer to attend weekly NSC meetings rather than the weekly JIC. Perhaps their new elevation is symptomatic of the growing importance of intelligence generally over the last two decades within the UK system. 11 More cynically, the NSC also operates as a marketing tool for each intelligence agency to promote its work to the highest consumers in the land.

The review clarified issues of agenda setting. As its principal consumer, the NSC agenda now broadly drives that of the JIC. Accordingly, the NSC(O) has become a key, but not the sole, setter of JIC papers. Demonstrating continuity with JIC tradition, the committee’s assessments can still be tasked and sponsored by departments to meet their own priorities. However, Whitehall’s JIO will challenge these if they are out of kilter with overall NSC requirements. The JIC is now docked squarely beneath the NSC. Whilst increasing impact, this creates a problem dubbed the ‘tyranny of the tactical’. The JIC must keep pace with myriad NSC requirements. NSC direction can potentially skew intelligence towards myopic short-termism by neglecting longer-term strategic issues on which no immediate policy decision is necessary. This is an issue of which the committee must be aware as it settles into the new system.

The National Security Strategy sets the broad strategic direction of intelligence and the JIC then offers more detailed prioritisation. This is then overlaid by the NSC, which dictates the more immediate repositioning of resources in response to developing events. The ISC has welcomed this change and clarification. 12 It should also be noted that the NSC has now discussed those priorities established through the JIC process, thereby giving them formal ministerial endorsement.

Although this sounds complicated, Iain Lobban, the director of GCHQ, has described how it works in practice:

The Rimmer–Martin review also shaped the presentation and dissemination of intelligence. According to Peter Ricketts, the JIC had become too ‘stately and formal’ over the years. Assessments needed to be much faster, more nimble and more flexible. 14 The JIC now offers fewer memoranda. Lengthy papers which characterised the Cold War era are a thing of the past. Almost like a consultancy company, it instead provides a more diverse range of tailored products to meet consumer needs. Building on Lord Butler’s recommendations, these publications are more accessible to senior readership, including the Prime Minister himself.

The most controversial aspect of the review concerned the JIC’s relationship with policy. Closer relations enhance relevance and policymakers’ access to intelligence. Senior ministers can now see where intelligence comes from, whilst it can simultaneously be inspiring for the intelligence community to witness its product being debated at the highest level. The NSC gives impact to intelligence and ensures it passes the ‘so what’ test. This is vital. No matter how accurate or insightful, an unread intelligence assessment is pointless.

Closer relations, however, risk politicisation and the abuse of intelligence. Debating the issue in the House of Lords, Peter Hennessy expressed concern that ‘some of the key elements of the JIC tradition might fade under the new dispensation’. JIC analysts should not ‘fall into the trap either of advocacy or of telling their customers what they wish to hear’. 15 Defending the system, William Hague has refuted such warnings. The Foreign Secretary argued that JIC papers do not say ‘Well then, these are the policies that follow from that [assessment]’. The committee, therefore, does not present a ‘blurring of the lines’. Although Hague’s defence went some way to alleviating ISC concerns about the subject, the committee still felt compelled to issue a warning: ‘It is imperative that policy implications and analytical judgments remain separate in any intelligence assessment provided to Ministers.’ 16 To be fair, the JIO was always alive to these issues. For a variety of reasons, JIC papers no longer contain a policy implications box.

The JIC is now closely tied to the most senior policymakers in the land. Building on the committee’s ascent of the Whitehall hierarchy since 1936, the new reforms put the JIC in a potentially impressive position. The committee is at the forefront of providing essential intelligence decisions to support policy at the highest levels of government. This is a far cry from the days of Suez when its reports were marginalised. Its future is certainly brighter than it was a decade ago. At the same time, moreover, the JIC model has been much admired by Britain’s allies over the last seventy years. As Hennessy warns, ‘Its tradition […] should never be allowed to slip towards the margins.’ 17

1 .	Peter Hennessy, Distilling the Frenzy: Writing the History of One’s Own Times (London: Biteback, 2012), p. 94.
2 .	Private information.
3 .	Jonathan Powell, The New Machiavelli: How to Wield Power in the Modern World (London: Vintage, 2011), p. 286; private information.
4 .	Philip Davies, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States: A Comparative Perspective, Vol. 2: Evolution of the UK Intelligence Community (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2012), pp. 306–7; Hennessy, Distilling the Frenzy , p. 95.
5 .	Sir John Scarlett quoted in Mark Phillips, ‘Failing Intelligence: Reform of the Machinery’, in Michael Codner and Michael Clarke (eds), A Question of Security: The British Defence Review in an Age of Austerity (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), p. 262.
6 .	Davies, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States , p. 308; Sir John Sawers, ‘Britain’s Secret Front Line’, speech to the Society of Editors, 28 October 2010.
7 .	Davies, Intelligence and Government in Britain and the United States , p. 309.
8 .	Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report, 2010–2011 , Cm 8114 (Norwich: The Stationery Office, 2011), p. 40.
9 .	Ibid., pp. 40, 4; Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report, 2011–2012 , Cm 8403 (Norwich: The Stationery Office, 2012), p. 11.
10 .	Hennessy, Distilling the Frenzy , p. 94.
11 .	Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy, First Review of the National Security Strategy 2010 , HL Paper 265 / HC 1384 (London: The Stationery Office, 2012), para. 93, available at http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt201012/jtselect/jtnatsec/265/26506.htm#a19 (last accessed 12 November 2013).
12 .	Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report, 2011–2012 , p. 12.
13 .	Iain Lobban quoted ibid.
14 .	Peter Ricketts quoted ibid., p. 11.
15 .	Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, December 2011, quoted in Distilling the Frenzy , p. 99.
16 .	Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report, 2011–12 , pp. 9–10, 13.
17 .	Hennessy, Distilling the Frenzy , p. 99.