Forecasters warn of storm clouds on horizon if PM's forward strategy team fails to deliver

When Tony Blair created the Forward Strategy Unit within days of winning the general election in June last year, its stated remit was as baffling as it was novel.

"Blue skies thinking", a lethal cocktail of New Labourspeak and US-style management consultant jargon, was to be the mission of the new body, based in Downing Street.

Derived from "blue skies research", a phrase used originally in America by biotechnology and computer wonks, the term was meant to sum up the innovative, strategic thinking Labour needed for its transformation of modern Britain.

The FSU was a small group of about 20 people to provide radical and highly confidential proposals for the Prime Minister on a range of topics, cutting across varied Whitehall departments.

Geoff Mulgan, also director of the Prime Minister's Performance and Innovation Unit and former head of the Demos think-tank, was appointed as the head of the new unit. Lord Birt was appointed as a strategy adviser, becoming in effect deputy to Mr Mulgan.

But it took until October for the FSU to appoint four heavyweight figures from the private sector who would work part-time and unpaid. These were the outsiders who would look afresh at problems that had defeated decades of previous governments. Freed from the mundane constraints of electoral timetables, Sir Humphrey's innate caution and need to provide detailed policy, they were Mr Blair's "Big Tent" personified.

The list appeared impressive, even if not all of the thinkers were well known: Adair Turner, the former director general of the Confederation of British Industry; Penny Hughes, the ex-president of Coca-Cola in the UK; Nick Lovegrove, a partner at the management consultants McKinsey; and Arnab Banerji, the chief investment officer at Foreign & Commonwealth Management Limited.

As the whole point of the FSU was to provide radical ideas "for Blair's eyes only", its deliberations have been shrouded in a thick veil of secrecy. But occasional leaks have offered a glimpse of its workings.

As chief Mr Blue Skies, Lord Birt's own ideas have received the most publicity and his plans for a network of tolled "supermotorways" were well publicised earlier this year. Unfortunately for the former director general of the BBC, the plans were immediately ridiculed as impractical and expensive by motoring organisations and environmentalists. Even Mr Blair worried they would cost "a lot of dosh".

Details of the others' thinking are sketchy. Until today's revelations by The Independent, Mr Turner was known only to be working on the NHS. Mr Lovegrove is understood to be looking at IT options in 15 or 20 years. But neither Mr Banerji nor Ms Hughes has revealed the subjects they are studying.

The Prime Minister's personal enthusiasm for the project ensures it will continue. But critics warn that unless impressive ideas are generated for the next election, those blue skies could soon be turning grey for the Government.