Tories prepare for power with City advisers

The Conservative party is hiring a series of leading City firms to advise it on implementing policies in the wake of success at a possible snap general election.

In the build-up to this week's Tory conference in Birmingham, Francis Maude, who runs the "implementation office", has been in talks with firms known to include KPMG and Deloitte to assess the quickest ways of introducing manifesto promises. A couple of secondees from the accountancy firms are helping the team draw up policy.

The overtures are part of a wider Tory ambition to gather as much private-sector advice as possible while in opposition. Already PricewaterhouseCoopers has produced a report for Baron Forsyth of Drumlean, who is running a review of Conservative tax policy, while KPMG has secondees in the party's policy groups.

However, the latest moves seem to be part of the Conservatives' drive to ensure that the party is making "sensible preparations" for government. Leader David Cameron wrote in last week's House Magazine that the party conference would explain "what we want to achieve and how we'll go about it".

A Whitehall source said: "Should Andrew Lansley [the shadow Health Secretary] want loads of new hospitals in the first 100 days of government, the firms would look at the quickest way of introducing them. It's about policy implementation at the early stages of a Conservative government."

Mr Maude, who is shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: "We're getting some help from a couple of consulting firms in providing information for implementation. We're in discussions with a whole range of outside bodies on how to make things happen in government."

Sources said that appointments on the latest policy implementation review should be made before the end of the year.

The party is also known to be visiting City advisory firms to present its major themes for government, including welfare reform and localism – essentially devolution in areas such as social care budgets.

On the broader issue of the current financial turmoil, the Conservatives are being careful not to comment on the crisis for fear of undermining any actions being taken by the Government to stabilise the situation.

One source said: "The fact is that we are constrained on commenting because we don't want to be seen to be irresponsible at such a sensitive time. We also have less information than government ministers who are in constant contact with the banking supervisors and other regulators."

However Mark Hoban, the shadow Secretary to the Treasury, commented on the latest move by the Financial Services Authority to put a ban on short-selling on 29 banking and financial stocks: "Clearly a temporary ban on some stocks was necessary because it gave people some much-needed confidence and steadied nerves.

"But if you widen the scope of the ban you have a problem because you are saying it's not a legitimate tactic."