Edgar Briggs is an agent with MI6.
Sometimes that is how he would like himself to be considered and at other times he enjoys the fact that he is "the personal assistant to the Commander of the British Secret Intelligence Service". Both are true with the former having been the case for some time before achieving the latter.
To everyone else in MI6, including the mentioned Commander, Briggs is, well, he is Briggs. Seldom can a person be summed up as succinctly as he can be just by uttering his name. Briggs can be to anyone who has had the "experience" of dealing with him. This is summed up by a paraphrasing of a normal exchange between two fellow agents: "Have you ever dealt with Briggs?" "No." "Ah, right. There you are then!"
It would be not only safe but almost mandatory to describe Briggs as "inept". Many pictures taken of him show him holding in his right hand a pistol and if you have spent anytime with him at all, that is enough to give most people pause and smart people the urge to duck.
Does Briggs know he is as out-of-his-depth as everyone else knows? Probably not but at times he does show a glimmer or two, enough to show concern on his face, but he blithely moves past it.
The question that I ask myself over and over while watching the recorded adventures of this operative is whether his adoring wife, Jennifer, really know it. That she loves him is without question. She is a wonderful combination of very sharp insightfulness and bliss ignorance, depending on the circumstance.
In answer to the question of how someone as unqualified as Briggs would get to such an important position as personal assistant, able to give orders and issue instructions all with no apparent understanding of any situation, two words speak volumes. "Clerical Error".