The initiative will be led by Margaret Gilmore, who takes up a position as Senior Research Fellow at RUSI. She will provide regular briefings and research papers to examine how the machinery of government performs in this field. She will work with the National Security and Resilience Department of the Institute and will also collaborate with other parts of the Institute to bring together all RUSI’s considerable research and networking resources on governmental security policies.

The Government’s approach to national security issues has recently undergone an important evolution, developing a new level of inter-departmental co-operation in implementing the new National Security Strategy.

Governmental policy on national security issues, which is encapsulated in the UK National Security Strategy, involves most Whitehall departments (the Home Office, the Justice Department, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) , the Ministry of Defence (MOD), etc.) a number of agencies and as well as new co-ordinating mechanisms.

The Stabilisation Unit acts as a link between the three parent departments of the MOD, the FCO and DFID. The Civil Contingencies Secretariat in the Cabinet Office and the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, the Office of Security and Counter-Terrorism within the Home Office co-ordinate the Government’s CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy.

The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the UK Border Agency (UKBA), the Cabinet Committee on National Security, International Relations and Development (NSID) and a new National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office drive the implementation of the National Security Strategy.

RUSI's Public Policy initiative intends to monitor and analyse this evolution as it develops further to assess its results.