Collective and Ministerial Responsibility Notes PDF

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Collective and Ministerial Responsibility Notes 

Role of constitution is:  Enable governments  Constrain executive power

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The UK does not have a codified single document; but constrains through some specific laws and broader principles This is where the importance political accountability through conventions such as Collective and Ministerial responsibility are important

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Is source of executive power relevant?   

Separation of powers principle The courts have little influence on how policy is shaped or developed and can only interpret legislation is passed The key functions of parliament are:  Legitimise the government  Supporting the government  Legislating  Holding the government to account:  Legal  Political  Media

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The Executive holds control over policy making Parliament’s role of policy influencing is limited

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Due to governmental and executive dominance on creation of policy Must be held to account for actions and decisions One way this is done is by holding ministers to account for decisions and policy for their department This is done through the convention of ministerial responsibility There are two factors of ministerial responsibility:  Collective responsibility  Individual ministerial responsibility

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Convention of individual ministerial responsibility has been criticised for lack of enforceability and its lack of effectiveness in holding ministers to account in parliament – expand? Convention of collective ministerial responsibility has been held to be an effective way of holding ministers to account in parliament as a collective

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Depending on question analyse both aspects of ministerial responsibility and their effectiveness

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Broad concepts of responsibility:

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Transparency Liability Responsibility

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Principles of ministerial code: 1.2 applies to all below  Accountability to Parliament  Collective responsibility applies to all government ministers  No conflict of interest between public duties and private interests  Do not mislead Parliament  Separate role of MP and Minister  Uphold impartiality of civil service

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The cabinet manual:  A guide to laws, conventions and rules on the operation of government

Convention of collective responsibility  Defined under para 2.1 of the ministerial code:  The requirement for ministers to freely express their opinions and views in private but once a decision has been made they must support it unconditionally  Decisions made are binding on ministers and departments - must be followed (relevant to include consequence i.e. part of manual?)  Collective responsibility applies to all ministers – 1.2 a  

This is important because the government must maintain a united front against opposition Without this principle the government would struggle to maintain the confidence of parliament and the majority of votes – i.e. a divided cabinet means a divided government

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Three key aspects of collective responsibility:  Confidence principle  Confidentiality principle  Unanimity principle - Geoffrey Marshall

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In practice this means:  Confidence - Must not speak against government policy; this means if a vote is lost whole government and not just minister is incompetent  Confidentiality - Former ministers must not reveal cabinet secrets; do not reveal discussions from cabinet  Unanimity - All decisions are decisions of the whole government; must speak and vote as one even if the minister disagrees; if this happens with support the whip the vote should be secured by the party as a whole  3.20 - If a minister finds himself unable to vote or support the cabinet’s decision then they should resign

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Examples of convention resignation:  Liam Fox – defence meetings (confidentiality)

 Andrew Mitchell – Plebgate (personal actions)  Michael Heseltine – helicopters, Westland affair (confidentiality and unanimity)  Jimmy Thomas – leaked secrets to opposition on budget (confidentiality) 

However under exceptional circumstances the government may allow a free vote:  An agreement to differ whereby ministers can voice their opinions freely  Brexit vote 2016 allowed campaigning freely (no whip intervention etc)

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This shows that like all other conventions collective responsibility is flexible rather than rigid like laws If collective responsibility was a legal construct then it is unlikely exception such as Brexit split would be possible i.e a free vote in subjective circumstances

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Ministers will disagree and debate during cabinet meetings but must defend the overall decisions even if it’s against a ministers personal views 2.3 – internal process is secret and to be followed by all members; must be kept private and not leaked If minister were to leak private government information they are expected to resign

Effectiveness of collective responsibility  Relatively successful in holding the executive of government to account  Enforcement within parliament, the convention has been successful in making sure that collectively all ministers support the government line  This extends to all ministers beyond the cabinet – effective to maintain support and control of votes  The consequences of breaching the convention while having no legal repercussions, has serious political ones  Minister will be expected and pressured to resign from position  This can impact future roles within the party  (Heseltine) campaigned and spoke against Thatcher  This shows that collective responsibility can be effective way of holding ministers to account  Threat of losing job  Leaks still happen however but are often overlooked  This means that not always but is mostly effective Coalition governments  Allows deviation from standard; two parties and thus have differing views  i.e Lib Dems and Snoopers Charter  would not be possible to hold the minority party to account through the majority parties means  this would create a large imbalance in power  with regards to coalition governments, collective responsibility is suspended and thus is ineffective in maintaining accountability of ministers of government.

Individual Ministerial Responsibility  role of ministers criteria:  Within Government to; set policy priorities; negotiate on behalf of their department; ensure civil servant are running department  Answering to Parliament  Public face of Government  

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Under this convention every minister is responsible for their own official conduct 1.2b - Those ministers that head departments are responsible for the conduct and decision making of the respective department Ministerial code para 4.6 Reasoning for this convention is that: Government can be more readily held to account by having an identifiable minister who is responsible Government power is held and exercised by ministers who tend to be MP’s – this provides the necessary link between government decisions and parliament Ministers are held to account for policies adopted by government, agencies and personal conduct Held to account through: Obliged to provide an account to parliament for actions of department etc Ministers are obliged to provide statements and answer questions to explain policies of departments This also means taking responsibility for when things go wrong Accountability primarily through questions to ministers and parliamentary select committees

Effectiveness of ministerial responsibility  Same as collective responsibility that there is no legal consequence however –  Extreme sanction of forcing minister to resign for wrongdoing  Ministers must assume responsibility and the penalty that parliament deems appropriate 

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Before resignation is appropriate must establish:  Will depend on the seriousness of the wrongdoing uncovered  2.1 - This can include knowingly misleading or lying to parliament (breaching  Due to vast number of government departments it is hard to keep account of small things; this means it is not fair to amount responsibility to ministers in these circumstances  Media response to actions of ministers can mean a swift removal of support from their political party i.e. putting job at risk Common reason is personal conduct; rather than departmental action Embarrassment to government from personal life of minister (I.e. Andrew Mitchell plebgate)

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Pressure from media and ministers led to resignation; showing convention can be effective Ministers are accountable for department wrongdoing – admin chaos Carltona case (Charles Clark – release of prisoners) Resigned; Admin blunder Balance – Ministerial responsibility not effective; no change made to department after resignation Convention can be flawed because:  Parliament rarely holds ministers to account  Immense work load of parliament leaves little time to scrutinise ministers  This puts a large responsibility on specific select committees to pick up on wrongdoings  Some new public bodies are not deemed to be departments i.e. quangos etc  This means there is no minister to hold to account for mistakes Civil service: Ministers dodge blame by pointing at civil service Key convention:  Obedience  Anonymity  Neutrality  Advise government unbiasedly  CS not accountable to parliament for decisions  Independence of civil service makes it hard to hold them to account of actions  Notion of obedience makes it easy to avoid blame  Ministerial responsibility means CS is not scrutinised as much as they should  Involved in most government actions  Minister in charge of all these faults; punishes them unfairly for stuff they have not done  Both CS and Ministers blame each other because of grey area  Rural Affairs failure to pay on time; RPA exec dismissed  More complex to hold civil service accountable 

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