The Cabinet:
The Cabinet is ‘a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body.’ [1]
‘Parliamentary government is that form of government in which the executive is drawn from the legislature and is constitutionally responsible to it.’ [2]
The cabinet were originally senior members of the monarch’s privy council. Their role has become the connection between Parliament and the executive.
The Office of Prime Minister:
The Office of the Prime Minister is one made by convention, not a legal backing.
They are appointed by the monarch using prerogative power, usually based on leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. This is only a convention though, since voting in the UK is for a political party, not for the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister also holds offices of First Lord of the Treasury and Minister of the Civil Service.
The Ministers:
There 20-25 senior ministers, selected by the Prime Minister and appointed by the monarch.
The Offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Scotland all have origins in the law and are conventionally always part of the cabinet. For this reason, they may be seen as more legitimate offices.
Cabinet Relations:
The Prime Minister always has the power over the ministers, their subordinates and departments. They allocate functions of the executive to departments and can reorganise government departments.
‘[PM] the keystone in the Cabinet arch’ [3]
The Prime Minister is dependent on their cabinet for advice. A Prime Minister who refuses the advice of their cabinet is unwise, especially during coalition governments. Furthermore, ignoring advice could be potentially damaging to the Prime Ministers career.
‘a Prime Minister’s main political strength comes from the Cabinet… and from the parliamentary party’. [4]
There is debate as to whether the role of the Prime Minister has transitioned from one where their ministers are ‘first among equals’, to one where the Prime Minister has a more ‘presidential role’. [5]
Wider Government:
The government also contains junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries.
There can be a maximum of 95 ministers selected from the House of Commons. This demonstrates the significant overlap of legislative and executive functions.
Like cabinet ministers, wider government officials are held to a Ministerial Code, but only by the Prime Minister. There is no official oversight.
‘7 Principles of Public Life’ [6]:
Selflessness
Integrity
Objectivity
Accountability
Openness
Honesty
Leadership
The Civil Service:
The civil service is a permanent, impartial, objective, independent and anonymous body within the executive. They stay in office when the government changes.
Civil Servants are ‘Servants of the Crown’, not of a political party. [7]
Civil Servants are not directly responsible to Parliament. They are proxies of the policy set by the ministers. Therefore, they can be neither creditworthy nor blameworthy.
‘Civil servants are accountable to Ministers, who in turn are accountable to Parliament’ [8]
Evolution of the State:
Traditional Civil Service:
The traditional view is that the government is to take a minimal function of providing basic civil freedoms.
EG: right to property, freedom of contract etc.
Through the 20th Century:
The state began to be seen as an agent of social change. This was marked by the growth in social welfare.
EG: nationalisation of industries, education, infrastructure, NHS etc.
‘Cradle to grave’
There was an increasing need for defined responsibilities so that governmental departments could be held to account for their actions. [9] The impact of the Fulton Committee Report spurred the creation of regulatory bodies.
Late 20th / Early 21st Century:
The purpose of the state changed to regulating private industries.
‘Regulatory’, ‘contracting’, ‘hollowed-out’ state.
State is an entity that now ‘steers but does not row’. [10]
The idea emerged that big government (such as a welfare / nationalised state) was the antithesis of freedom. [11]
‘Modern governance is defined by being less about the direct intervention of government and more about the ways in which the environment of action for private actors can be shaped by the state’. [12]
It was suggested that each governmental department scrutinises each of its functions and make the decision to either continue, create an agency, contract out, privatise or abolish. [13]
Reasons for Change:
Private enterprise is more efficient.
The government was conceived as the provider of services to the consumer citizen. Taxes were seen as the exchange for these services.
Changes to Responsibility and Accountability:
During the changes of the late 20th century, policy creation and administration separated. The minister’s responsibility for their department reduced, meaning they couldn’t be held to account. Some argue that the administration must depend on current policy, so the minister should still be responsible.
References:
[1] Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867)
[2] Michael Rush, Parliamentary Government in Britain (1981) [3] Lord Morley (1889) [4] Rodney Brazier, Constitutional and Administrative Law (1991) [5] R. Heffernan and P. Webb, ‘The British Prime Minister: much more than “First Among Equals” ’ in T. Poguntke and P Webb (eds), The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies (Oxford University Press 2007) 26–62 [6] Cabinet Manual [7] Cabinet Office, The Cabinet Manual (1st edn, London: Cabinet Office 2011) para. 7.1 [8] Cabinet Office, The Cabinet Manual (1st edn, London: Cabinet Office 2011) [9] Fulton Committee Report (1967) [10] Osborne and Gaebler, Reinventing Government (1992) [11] Hayek, Road to Serfdom (1944) [12] Morison (2000) [13] ‘Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps’ (1988)
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