2. Anonymity
• The principle that UK civil servants should be
able to conduct their business in private without
being held publicly and personally responsible for
the work they do.
• Anonymity is one of the three traditional
principles of the UK civil service, the others being
impartiality (neutrality) and permanence.
• It is linked to the role responsibility aspect of
IMR, i.e. the notion that the secretary of state is
directly responsible and accountable for all that
goes on in his or her department.
3. Bilateral meetings
• Meetings between the PM and a single cabinet
colleague. Also known as sofa government.
• In the modern era, decisions have increasingly
been taken in such meetings and in kitchen
cabinets as opposed to cabinet proper. This is one
of the factors that is said to have undermined
cabinet government.
• Bilateral meetings were used extensively by Tony
Blair during his time in office (Bank of England
interest rates).
4. Bureaucracy
• The unelected part of government and the
structures and processes that govern its
operation. Also known as the civil service.
The term ‘bureaucratic’ is also often used in
criticism of processes that are overly long or
requiring excessive volumes of paperwork.
5. Cabinet Committees
• A subset of the cabinet, chaired by the PM, or someone of his
choosing, and focusing on a particular area of policy.
• The PM has considerable control over the
number, scope, composition and operation of cabinet
committees. Some cabinet committees are permanent others
are ad hoc .
• John Major was the first PM to publish details about the
structure and composition of cabinet committees as part of his
commitment to open government.
• The cabinet committees that operate on a permanent basis are
grouped together into categories such as foreign and defence
policy, domestic/home affairs and economic policy. An example
of a permanent committee would be the Energy and the
Environment Committee (EE). Ad hoc (or miscellaneous)
committees are established to deal with specific issues or
concerns, e.g. the Olympics Committee (MISC 25).
6. Cabinet Government
• The traditional view that cabinet is the key decision-
making body within the government with PM acting
only as primus inter pares (first amongst equals). See
also collective responsibility. Walter Bagehot
described cabinet as the ‘efficient secret’ of the English
constitution.
• A decline in the number and length of cabinet
meetings under Tony Blair, along with his willingness
to make key decisions outside cabinet in bilateral
meetings (e.g. the decision to hand control over
interest rates to the Bank of England), led some to
question the notion of cabinet government.
7. Cabinet Office
• The civil service body that supports and
coordinates the work of cabinet. It is headed
by the cabinet secretary, a senior civil
servant. Sir Gus O Donnell has held this post
from 2005 - present.
• The reorganisation of the Cabinet Office and
the ‘Prime Minister’s Office under Tony Blair
led some to herald the rise of a de facto prime
minister’s department.
8. Civil Service
• The bureaucratic element of government comprising
the civil servants who work in government
departments and other agencies established by the
executive. It is often referred to simply as Whitehall.
• The civil service is said to be based upon three core
principles: anonymity, impartiality and permanence.
• A process of ‘agentification’ has seen many tasks
previously discharged by the core civil service placed
under the control of executive agencies (Next Steps
Programme).
9. Collective Ministerial
Responsibility
• The convention under which members of the UK cabinet are required to
stand publicly by those decisions made privately within cabinet.
• Those who do not wish to operate under this convention are expected to
resign their cabinet posts and argue their case as backbenchers.
• Collective responsibility is intrinsically linked to the idea of collective
decision making.
• In March 2003, the Leader of the House of Commons, Robin Cook, stood
down from his seat in cabinet in order to speak out against the decision to
go to war in Iraq. Clare Short also opposed military action but was
persuaded to stay in cabinet with the promise that she would be involved
in the reconstruction after the war. This is an example of an ‘agreement to
differ’, where a prime minister keeps a minister in cabinet in spite of their
dissent.
• A prime minister can also suspend collective responsibility. Harold Wilson
suspended collective responsibility in 1975 so that cabinet ministers could
be involved in the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ campaigns that accompanied the
nationwide referendum on continued UK membership of the EEC.
10. Core Executive
• The network of high-ranking individuals, institutions and
advisory bodies that operate at the heart of central
government, developing and overseeing the execution of
government policy.
• R. A. W. Rhodes saw the core executive as ‘the complex web of
institutions, networks and practices surrounding the prime
minister, cabinet, cabinet committees and their official
counterparts, less formalised ministerial “clubs” or meetings,
bilateral negotiations … interdepartmental committees [and]
coordinating departments’ such as the Cabinet Office, the
Treasury, the Foreign Office, the law officers, and the security
and intelligence services.
• Some argue that changes made to the PMO and the Cabinet
Office under Tony Blair created a prime minister’s department
in all but name. Such changes, when taken alongside the rise of
bilateral meetings and so-called sofa government, marked a
significant shift in power within the core executive.
11. Department
• A unit of government concerned with developing and
administering policy in a particular field. Since the
1980s, much of the work of government departments
has been transferred to semi-independent agencies).
• In July 2009, the Home Office was headed by Alan
Johnson MP, a leading cabinet member. There were
also five other ministers working in the department
below cabinet rank: two ministers of state (David
Hanson MP and Phil Woolas MP); and three other
ministers (Alan Campbell MP, Meg Hillier MP and Lord
West of Spithead).
12. Individual Ministerial
Responsibility
• A convention under which ministers are held
accountable to Parliament for their own personal
behaviour (personal responsibility) and the conduct of
their departments (role responsibility), requiring them
to resign in the event that they fail in either sphere.
• Some argue that the process of agencification ushered
in with the Next Steps Programme has undermined
the role responsibility aspect of this convention as it is
difficult to hold ministers responsible for decisions that
have been taken by a quasi-autonomous executive
agency .
13. Permanence
• the view that civil servants should not come
and go with governments but remain to serve
whichever party is returned to office. The view
is also held that civil servants should not be
held accountable and sacked for failures
within government departments. Permanence
is one of the three traditional principles upon
which the civil service was said to operate, the
others being neutrality (impartiality) and
anonymity.
14. Prerogative Powers
• constitutional powers resting with the
monarch but exercised in practice by the
prime minister.
• The prerogative powers include the power to
dissolve Parliament (i.e. call a general
election) as well as the power of patronage.
15. Presidentialism
• The view that the prime minister has become a presidential
figure, both in power and in style.
• This concept was developed by writers such as Michael Foley
with his work on spatial leadership.
• Both Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair were criticised for
adopting a presidential style because of their powerful
positions, their aloofness, their dismissive attitudes towards
Parliament and their lack of consultation with cabinet (see
bilateral meetings and sofa government ).
• The concept of a presidential prime minister also reflected the
increasing concentration of power around the premier within the
core executive .
• There is some debate, however, over how far comparisons with
the USA can be taken, as they underestimate the limitations
imposed by both the influence of political parties in the UK and
the power of some cabinet ministers .
16. Prime Minister’s Office
• describing a collection of bodies supporting the work of the PM. It is located
in Number 10, though it is not a room in the sense of the US president’s
Oval Office. Populated by a blend of appointees, career civil servants and
special advisors, the Prime Minister’s Office has expanded in recent years to
employ well over 150 staff. It traditionally comprises bodies such as the
Private Office , the Press Office, the Political Unit and the Policy Unit. See
also prime minister’s department.
• The Prime Minister’s Office was reorganised by Tony Blair in the wake of the
2001 general election:
• The Private Office was merged with the Policy Unit to form the Policy
Directorate.
• The prime minister’s press secretary , Alastair Campbell , was given a new
title: Director of Communications . Two civil service deputies took over the
management of press briefings.
• The post of prime minister’s principal private secretary was abolished and
replaced by a policy advisor.
• Three new bodies, the Delivery Unit, the Office of Public Services Reform
and the Forward Strategy Unit were created.
17. Prime Ministerial
Government
• A model of relations within the core executive
that sees the prime minister as a dominant
figure. It is closely associated with the ideas of
Richard Crossman, a Labour cabinet minister
in the late 1960s and author of Diaries of a
Cabinet Minister . Contrast this concept with
cabinet government .
18. Primus Inter Pares
• Latin for ‘first among equals’; the traditional
view that the prime minister is simply one
member of a cabinet that operates as a
collective decision-making body.
19. Sofa Government
• Describing the way in which prime minister Tony
Blair was said to have directed government
through a series of informal and unminuted
bilateral meetings conducted on the sofas at
Number 10. Contrast with cabinet government .
• In a similar vein, Blair’s biographer, Anthony
Seldon, used the term ‘denocracy’; a reference to
Mr Blair’s preference for making decisions
following informal meetings in the ‘den’ at
Number 10.
20. Special Advisor
• a political appointee employed by and answerable
directly to a government minister or the prime
minister.
• They are often seen as being similar to spin doctor.
• It is common to draw a distinction between such
special advisors and career civil servants.
• An increase in the number of advisors under Thatcher
and Blair led to accusations of politicisation in the civil
service .
• Chancellor of the exchequer Nigel Lawson cited
Margaret Thatcher’s over-reliance on her economics
advisor Sir Alan Walters as the reason for his
resignation from cabinet in 1989.
21. Spin Doctor
• a pejorative term applied to those employed by politicians to
manage the way in which the media report their activities. It is
generally applied to those working in bodies such as the Press
Office but also to those individuals employed on a consultancy
basis by political parties. The former are commonly paid for by
taxpayers because they are employed as civil servants.
• The highest profile example of a spin doctor is Alastair Campbell
, prime minister Tony Blair’s press secretary (1997–2001) and
Director of Communications and Strategy (from 2001).
Transport Secretary Stephen Byers’ spin doctor Jo Moore
provoked controversy on 9/11 when she circulated an e-mail
suggesting that it was a ‘good day to bury bad news’.
• The rise of such spin doctors after New Labour’s election to
office in 1997 proved controversial because they appeared to be
serving a party-political function, even though they were in
many cases paid for by the taxpayer.
