Mike Granatt

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Mike Granatt, CB FCIPR, a former senior British civil servant, was the first head of the Civil Contingencies Secretariat of the Cabinet Office in 2001.

For nearly 20 years Granatt held a range of the most senior communication posts in British government service, and was press secretary to five cabinet ministers, both Conservative and Labour. Alongside his management roles he specialised in crisis and counterterrorist issues, and in his final posting simultaneously created and led Britain's civil crisis management unit and the professional grouping of government communication specialists.

[edit] Early life

Granatt attended Queen Mary College, University of London where he ran the students' union newspaper for two years. He briefly appeared in what its members considered the legendary folk/rock band Pig Rider penning some of the lyrics for the curiously mis-titled Paeolithic Transport Blues.

After some years as a newspaper journalist, Granatt joined the civil service in 1979 as an information officer. After junior postings in the Department of Employment and the Home Office, he joined the Department of Energy and became director of information within three years. He was responsible for all news and marketing communication work, and was a member of the department’s management board. He went on to hold similar posts for the Metropolitan Police, the Department of the Environment and the Home Office.

While at the Home Office he was appointed head of profession for the Government Information Service, becoming full time in that post on transfer to the Cabinet Office in 1998. This move, to provide direct support to Sir Richard Wilson (now Lord Wilson of Dinton), then cabinet secretary, was made to help deliver changes facing the renamed Government Information and Communication Service (GICS) after Labour won power in 1997.

Although much of his work concentrated on reforms, including new recruitment and training arrangements, he was also the central adviser on the ethics and guidance governing the work of the GICS and other government communication staff. These civil servants were continually under political pressure from ministers' special advisers, from the new politically-led Downing Street news operation run by Alastair Campbell, and from some ministers.

[edit] Work at CCS

Granatt has also taken a leading role in co-ordinating public information from government during the run up to the millennium, the nationwide fuel protests of 2000, and the foot and mouth disease outbreak in 2001. As a result, he co-authored with Dr Jamie Macintosh a paper for the Cabinet Secretary Sir Richard Wilson (Lord Wilson of Dinton) entitled "Building Resilience: a new approach to crisis". This paper, which the Cabinet Office refuses to release, highlighted Whitehall's lack of a joined-up approach to foreseeing, planning for or handling major cross-sector crises. Granatt and Macintosh pointed out that prevailing approach to major emergencies took no account of modern network society, where the interactions between organisations and individuals occurred through a multitude of connection: physical, electronic, cultural, formal, informal, markets, services and many more. A new approach was needed, using horizon scanning to stimulate preparation that looked across departmental boundaries; new legislation to replace outmoded Emergency Planning powers dating from the 1920s, and a stronger civil crisis planning and management centre to facilitate a greatly improved cross-government approach.

As a result, in 2001 Granatt was asked to set up the Civil Contingencies Secretariat (CCS), a job he had then to hold in parallel with his GICS role after the government failed to find a candidate qualified to succeed him.

CCS was established in June 2001, and was intended to replace the Home Office's Emergency Planning Division, which had replaced the Home Defence and Emergency Services Division of Cold War days but its mission to update the UK’s emergency planning arrangements was swept up in the counterterrorist reforms following September 11, 2001. (This development led to a period durng which terrorism was seen in many countries as the greatest threat to the nation state when in fact major natural events posed a much more serious challenge. This was reflected in a much-quoted remark by the then Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King FRS, whose intention was to highlight the threat of climate change.)

Having established CCS, in 2002 Granatt reverted to the sole job of leading the GICS and was promoted to director-general. At deputy secretary level, this was at the second highest rank in the civil service.

In 2003, Granatt took early retirement following a review into the GICS led by Sir Bob Phillis which suggested further changes and leadership at top (permanent secretary) level. Granatt volunteered to go observing that not even he would appoint himself after nearly seven years in the job.

Granatt then joined city consultancy Luther Pendragon (www.luther.co.uk), in 2004. Currently he is also visiting professor at the University of Westminster; senior associate fellow at the Advanced Research and Development Group of the Defence Academy of the UK (www.defac.ac.uk), a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (www.cipr.co.uk), a past master of the City of London Guild of Public Relations Practitioners (www.prguild.com), a governor and trustee of Mary Hare School (www.maryhare.org.uk), and chairman of the UK Press Card Authority (www.ukpresscardauthority.co.uk).

He is regularly interviewed by the BBC and other other broadcasters on the handling of terrorism and major emergencies.