An End to Sofa GovernmentBetter working of Prime Minister and Cabinet

by the Conservative Democracy Task Force rapporteur, Roger Gough

Summary and recommendations

The Democracy Task Force brings forward recommendationsfor the Conservative Party to adopt that will makegovernment in the UK efficient, transparent, accountable andeffective. We will only restore confidence in our system ofdemocratic government if we improve the quality of operationat its core.

We believe that, in recent years, the combination of an over-powerful premiership and the dominance of newsmanagement within policy-making have been very damagingto both effective and accountable government. Cabinetgovernment has been all but destroyed. Most ministers havebecome little more than the presentational vehicles for thepolicies of political appointees in Number Ten. Presentationhas led policy. The Civil Service has been left to carry theblame for policies that have proved impossible to implement.Parliament has been expected to be the Prime Minister’spoodle.

This first paper focuses on the operations of the PrimeMinister and Cabinet, as well as on the relationship of thepolitical executive to the Civil Service. We make thefollowing recommendations to David Cameron for action bythe next Conservative government:

• A system must be established to entrench a process ofcollective cabinet government. This will require a new andstrengthened Ministerial Code, covering the requiredprocedures for the approval of policies by Cabinet

• To give the new Code authority it must be approved by aParliamentary resolution

• The Code should define with clarity the mainresponsibilities of the Prime Minister and of Secretaries ofState

• It should establish that no major decision of governmentshould be taken before full papers have been submitted ingood time to cabinet, and the opportunity has been givenfor a full decision in Cabinet, or more usually a CabinetCommittee

• The responsibility for monitoring the Code should be takenout of the hands of the Prime Minister and placed in thehands of a body with powers comparable to those of theNational Audit Office, reporting to a ParliamentaryCommittee

• To improve the quality of legislation, a powerfulLegislation Committee should scrutinise all proposed Billsboth for their necessity (to guard against ‘symbolic’legislation) and for their coherence. This should be coupledwith an expansion of pre-legislative scrutiny

• The Committee on Standards in Public Life shouldestablish a Code of Conduct for government publications

and advertising campaigns• Full independence should be given to the Office of

National Statistics, and an annual audit made of the use ofstatistics in all government departments

• Current numbers of political special advisers should bereduced by about half, and their role clearly defined as oneof advice rather than having any capacity to give directionsto career civil servants.

• The objectivity of the Civil Service must be restored andprotected, and political interference in personnel decisionslimited by means of a Civil Service Act

• Decisions to go to war or to commit troops to areas ofconflict should require Parliamentary approval. Decisionson war-making should no longer rest solely on theunfettered use of the Royal Prerogative by the PrimeMinister

• Treaties with financial, legal or territorial implications forthe United Kingdom or its citizens should requireParliamentary approval before ratification and should nolonger involve the use of the Royal Prerogative

Present discontents

There is a sense of malaise and decay surrounding Britishgovernment and British democracy, reflected in widespreadpublic cynicism, a fall in turnout and clear polling evidence ofloss of faith in both the intentions and competence ofpoliticians. It is this crisis of confidence that the DemocracyTask Force was set up to address.

Our first report deals with the workings of the centralmachinery of government, above all the role of the PrimeMinister and Cabinet, as well as of the systems – both thecareer Civil Service and political appointees – that servethem. We do not believe that the problems of this branch ofgovernment explain all of the disaffection that is felt towardsour system and institutions. In part, this reflects more generalfactors: a more intrusive media, the growth of the ‘permanentcampaign’ as a style of politics, the dumbing down ofpolitical debate and the rise of single issue pressure groups asan alternative, often stronger, focus of commitment. There arealso other, purely institutional questions to be addressed: theworkings of both Houses of Parliament, the degree ofcentralisation in our political system and the need forinstitutions to evolve in response to an electorate that is looserin its political identities but more demanding of results. Theywill be the subject of later papers.

Nonetheless, there are good reasons to think that there issomething wrong with the central machinery of government.Public disenchantment has many causes, but the sheerineffectiveness of government – the torrent of poor quality

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legislation, the failure to deliver on some of its very basicrequirements – is a major factor. The executive arm ofgovernment – or, more precisely, its leadership – is not doingits job.

There are all too many symptoms of this failure. The White orGreen papers that supposedly support legislation or leadpublic debate are all too often glossy publicity documents, oflittle value in policy analysis. There has never been more‘consultation’ in policy-making than now, but never has itmeant less: its main purpose appears to be to make legislationjudge-proof. Huge amounts of legislation are passed, but theBills – and even, despite amendment (much of it fromgovernment) while in the Commons and often significantimprovement by the Lords, the Acts passed into law – areoften unclear and incoherent. The whole basis on whichlegislation is being proposed is sometimes changed mid-stream, as has been the case with the Identity Cards Bill.

Another striking feature of the last ten years is that parts ofthe machinery of government that deliver policy and servicesto the public have begun to break down as never before. TheChild Support Agency, the Rural Payments Agency, thoseparts of the Revenue which deliver tax credits and theImmigration and Nationality department of the Home Officehave failed to function in an adequate fashion, causinghardship to many members of the public. One reason for thiscould be that the civil service in the department concernedand others involved in implementation are not adequatelyincluded in the early stages of devising policy. Policies workbest when the advice of the officialdom which is going tohave to deliver them to the public is properly considered.When the content of policy has been devised by a fewpolitical advisers and the timing of implementation is rushedfor political reasons, we have seen that disaster can follow.

The costs of a hyperactive premiership

This deterioration in government reflects the demands of ahyperactive Presidential-style leadership from No. 10,obsessed with the need for ‘eye-catching initiatives’ that willdominate the short-term media cycle. Ministers are reduced tobeing the agents of this centre, with the instruments oftraditional cabinet government having atrophied in favour ofthe celebrated ‘denocracy’ or ‘sofa government’. What is lostis the ability of the Cabinet and its structures to improvepolicy; the only effective counterweight to No. 10 has been

found next door. This is a rival centre of power on the modelof Hanoverian court politics, not a constitutional restraint.

The rise in the power of the Prime Minister at the expense ofthe Cabinet did not begin in 1997. More than four decadesago, Richard Crossman highlighted the phrase ‘PrimeMinisterial government’ as a contribution to a debate that hadalready begun. Both Harold Wilson – like Mr. Blair, anotherleader obsessed with media management – and Edward Heathwere seen in their time as ‘presidential’ leaders. MargaretThatcher revived the Policy Unit – a legacy of Wilson’s lastpremiership – as an instrument to assert her priorities againstdepartmental ministers, and moved discussion away from fullCabinet into Cabinet Committees and, increasingly, into adhoc groups and bilateral meetings with ministers. There havebeen a number of occasions on which Prime Ministerialdecision-making short-circuited traditional processes, rangingfrom the Industry Act in 1972 to the 1984 banning of tradeunions in GCHQ.

Nonetheless, the process has clearly accelerated in the lastdecade, and the most dramatic recent example was the decision-making leading up to the Iraq War. Two years ago, the ButlerReport found that, ‘the informality and circumscribed characterof the Government’s procedures … risks reducing the scope forinformed collective political judgement.’1 Some months earlierthe Hutton Inquiry had made clear the centrality of mediamanagement; there was ‘the sudden realisation that what untilthen had seemed an efficient news management operation onbehalf of government, was government.’2

Some of this can probably be attributed to Labour’s experienceof opposition, and to the leadership’s belief that they had todominate a media that had been hostile to them in the eightiesand early nineties to survive. This instinct was reinforced bythe spectacle of that same media turning on and helping todestroy the Major government. With ever-faster news cycles,New Labour believed that politicians faced a simple calculation:feed the beast often, or you will be the next meal. Add to this animpatience with apparently fusty procedures and a habit ofcentralisation born of distrust of much of the Labour Party, andwe have a formula for what the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff,Jonathan Powell, dubbed ‘a change from a feudal system ofbarons to a more Napoleonic system.’3

Thus the period since 1997 has seen an unprecedented furtherconcentration of power. Full Cabinet meetings remainperfunctory, both in length and substance. The Cabinet

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1 Review of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction: Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors (Chairman: Lord Butler of Brockwell), (The Stationery Office, 2004) p. 148.2 Sir Christopher Foster, Why Are We So Badly Governed? (Public Management and Policy Association, 2005), p. 11.3 Peter Hennessy, The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945r, (Allen Lane, 2000), p. 478; Andrew Rawnsley, Servants of the People: The Inside Story of NewLabour, (Hamish Hamilton, 2000), p. 27. For a full account of the decline of the role of Cabinet towards the end of the Twentieth Century, see Anthony Seldon, “The CabinetSystem”, in The British Constitution in the Twentieth Century, Vernon Bogdanor (ed.), (OUP, 2004), pp. 97-139, and Christopher Foster, British Government in Crisis (Hart, 2005),especially pp. 191-206.

Committee system, despite a modest revival since 2004,remains a shadow of its former self, supplanted by informalmeetings. The number of special advisers has grown sharply,both in Number 10 (where numbers have risen from 8 to 25since 1997) and in departments (from 30 to 59). On the firstweekend of the new government, an Order in Councilunprecedentedly gave two special advisers – Jonathan Powelland Alastair Campbell – formal authority to manage civilservants. 4

Alongside an excessive expansion of policy advisers, thebiggest growth has been in media management operations,which have been concentrated around the Prime Minister andthe No. 10 Strategic Communications Unit. Within departments,many of the senior civil servants from the GovernmentInformation Service were removed and the communicationsleadership role taken over by political appointees. Though therewere changes at the top and a less intrusive style after AlastairCampbell’s departure in 2003, the strong presentational focushas remained.

There has been a blurring of roles between the No. 10 staff,serving the Prime Minister, and the Cabinet Office, serving theentire Cabinet – unsurprisingly, to the disadvantage of the latter.A striking example of this was the merging – highlighted in theButler Report – of the roles of the Heads of the Defence andOverseas and European Affairs Secretariats with those of PrimeMinisterial advisers on these topics. While policy units haveproliferated in No. 10, the Cabinet Secretary has seen his role inpolicy-making reduced and is increasingly focused on theleadership’s mantra of ‘delivery’. The political corollary of thishas been the reduced independence of ministers, who have seentheir objectives set at personal meetings with the Prime Minister.The most recent reshuffle saw Prime Ministerial letters givingnew ministers detailed instructions as to their tasks.

Cabinet government: a strengthened andexpanded Ministerial Code

While the system’s pathologies are to a certain extent areflection of the current Prime Minister’s preoccupations andworking style, this does not provide a full explanation of whathas happened, nor would a change of leadership alone beenough to resolve them. Getting the process right matters. Thetendency towards a more ‘presidential’ leadership style has beenwith us for much of the last forty years. A voracious media, andits tendency to demand visible, personalised leadership willremain a given of political life. For this and other reasons, thepressures for both Prime Ministerial government and short-termpolitical fixes will remain strong.

If we are to restore the benefits of Cabinet government andimprove the quality of decision-making, good intentions andpromises of a new style will not be enough. Nor will an exercisein nostalgia. It is, however, increasingly clear that the quality ofdecision-making has been eroded in recent years by theinteraction between Prime Ministerial power and media-drivenactivism. Effective Cabinet government can operate as a formof quality checking and peer review among senior electedpoliticians, backed by the advice both of political advisers andof a neutral Civil Service. Its disciplines – the need for policyproposals to run the gauntlet of sustained scrutiny before theyare launched – can serve to improve decisions and reduce thenumber of blunders.

To achieve this, we need to operate in a more formal andsystematic way than was previously the case: overcoming thecurrent muddle as to roles and functions with a clear statement.This is not a naïve attempt to replace the realities of currentpolitical life with an idealised constitutional primer. By makingthe rules of decision-making more available to public scrutiny,we would introduce a counter-pressure to all the forces pushingministers (and especially Prime Ministers) to cut corners. Webelieve that this would both improve the practice of governmentand make its workings more transparent, improving publicconfidence.

Given the limited nature of formal constraints within oursystem, such a process is not entirely straightforward. Webelieve that checks and balances should remain a politicalprocess and not a judicial one. We have been interested by theGerman example of ‘General Rules of Business for the FederalGovernment’, which draws its authority from Article 85 of theBasic Law. Among its requirements is that a governmentdecision cannot be taken without a paper setting out thearguments being made available to the Cabinet in advance.However, even though these rules were based on what was thenBritish practice, they are highly prescriptive and buttressed bya much more legalistic political culture than we have or wish tohave. We need something that achieves the same ends but ismore flexible.

We believe that the Ministerial Code – formerly known asQuestions of Procedure for Ministers (QPM) – offers a suitableinstrument. At present, much of the Code is devoted to ethicalquestions; it also contains provisions as to how governmentbusiness should be done, many of them ignored in practice. Togive it added weight, we believe that the Code should beendorsed – ideally on a cross-party basis – by a vote ofParliament.

This should establish it as a benchmark for conduct of

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4 Dennis Kavanagh, ‘The Blair Premiership’ in Anthony Seldon and Dennis Kavanagh (eds.), The Blair Effect 2001-5, (Cambridge, 2005), p. 12; Oonagh Gay and Paul Fawcett,Special Advisers, House of Commons Library Standard Note SN/PC/3813, 21 November 2005; ‘Tories call for limit as wages of spin soar to nearly £6m’, The Times, 25 July 2006.

government. There is already something of a precedent for thisin terms of ethics: John Major’s admirable decision to publishQPM (for the first time) in 1992 set up a yardstick against whicha number of his ministers were measured and found wanting. Inother words, it became a widely accepted benchmark of whatwas and was not acceptable. A wider-ranging Code, voted on byParliament, would have even greater authority. In theory, adominant Prime Minister could still amend it at will; in practice,it would be very difficult to do so. And the longer the Codeendured (even if it underwent some amendments from time totime), the greater its moral and political force.

The operation of the Code would have to be monitored, and itwould clearly be insufficient for the Prime Minister to be judgeof his or her own actions. Bodies such as the PublicAdministration Committee already concern themselves with theprocess of decision-making, but there should also be – at leastin cases where the issue is raised – an ability for an outside bodyto certify whether or not the Code has been followed. Webelieve that this could be carried out by the National AuditOffice or a body with similar powers, notably the access togovernment papers that the NAO has in its investigations ofpublic spending. This body would then report to a ParliamentaryCommittee on the degree to which the Code had or had not beenfollowed in particular cases, although there would clearly be aneed to make some allowance for emergencies. A declarationthat the Code’s procedures had not been followed would be verydifficult for government to ignore.

This proposal is also an example of our belief that a greaterrole for Parliament can help to improve the operation of thecentral government machine. We will return to this themeboth later in this report and in our subsequent report on theworkings of Parliament. Inevitably, there will be pressures onministers to cut corners; however, they are less likely to do soif they remember (or are reminded by civil servants about) theprospect of more effective parliamentary scrutiny of theiractions.

Clarifying powers: Prime Minister andCabinet Ministers

Turning to the substance of the proposed Code, the role of thePrime Minister and that of individual Secretaries of State shouldbe clarified to a greater extent than is now the case. Secretariesof State need to play a leading role in collective governmentand should have a genuine lead authority in the subject area forwhich they are responsible. They should never be meresubordinates delivering and advocating policies imposed onthem by the Prime Minister’s Office or the Treasury.

The Prime Minister acts as the political head of the government

and must be answerable to Parliament for oversight of theCabinet’s development of policy and of the executive activity ofGovernment, securing the co-ordination of policy and executiveaction between departments. He or she is also responsible forthe effectiveness and efficiency of the Cabinet system; inparticular, he or she will be responsible for calling meetings ofthe Cabinet or Cabinet Committees, determining theirmembership and agendas. Most importantly, the Code willconfirm the Prime Minister’s powers of appointment anddismissal of ministers.5

In practice, Prime Ministers will always involve themselves inmany departmental matters. However, effective PrimeMinisterial leadership can work with strong departmentalministers to produce well-functioning government; the Attleegovernment, whatever the merits of its policies, provides anexample of this sort of effective operation. The Prime Ministermust be required to have the agreement of the relevant Secretaryof State before taking the initiative, let alone a decision, in hisor her policy area. Where the Secretary of State requests it or theresponsibilities of more than one Secretary of State areinvolved, the Prime Minister must let the matter be brought toCabinet or Cabinet Committee. The Prime Minister must notcommunicate with the Secretary of State’s department - whetherthrough junior ministers, special advisers or civil servants –without the Secretary of State’s knowledge.

Secretaries of State must be responsible for normally initiating,and always developing, policies and legislation in their policyareas. They must explain and defend their policies to Parliamentand, in most cases, take the lead with respect to the media andthe wider public as well. Nor should their role be so thoroughlyovershadowed by the Treasury as has been the case in recentyears. The Treasury requires control of overall public spending,and it is natural that this will also give it a questioning role,examining whether or not value for money is being achieved.However, it must not continue to usurp the role of departments.We therefore recommend the next Conservative government toend the Public Service Agreement (PSA) approach, which withits panoply of often meaningless targets has proved to be a hugediversion of time and energy.

Admittedly, there is some tension between a less centralisedapproach and the pressures of media management. Howeverdeplorable the consequences of the current government’s waysof operation, it is easy to see how they arose. Governmentcommunications managers realised that, in dealing the media,their position as the monopoly supplier of information gavethem an important advantage, helping them to set the terms inwhich a story was reported. To achieve this, however, requiredeffective central direction; this militated against individualdepartments leading with a story, and certainly against the

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5 The only (semi)-official list of the Prime Minister’s roles was drawn up by the Cabinet Office in the late 1940s, originally for a comparative government conference in Switzerland.It appears not to have been shown to the then Prime Minister, Attlee, nor to any of his successors. This paper, plus a useful list of contemporary functions is in Peter Hennessy, ThePrime Minister, pp. 57-90.

convention that the very first announcement should be made inParliament.

Re-establishing the convention that ministers should generallylead on matters related to their departments should help offsetsome of the centralising pressures of media management. Inaddition, the most pernicious consequence of the currentgovernment’s approach has been the tendency for efforts tomanage communications to turn into rapid and ill-conceivedinitiatives; we now turn to elements of the proposed Code thatwould help to overcome this.

The Cabinet must resume real collective responsibility for allnew policies and Bills put to Parliament, the media and thepublic. In practice, this means a series of procedures rather thansimply the use of Cabinet meetings: the load of governmentbusiness is too heavy for that, and the limitations of a twenty orso strong body for decision-making have long been realised. Inmany cases, issues can be agreed by circulation of papers; if notby that, then by the relevant Cabinet Committee. In practice, asin the past, Cabinet government will really be Cabinetcommittee government. Discussion at Cabinet itself should bereserved for the most important matters and in particular forthose for which the Secretary of State and the CabinetCommittee Chairman agree that it should be brought to Cabinet,usually because it remains unresolved.

The first and most obvious requirement is that there must beadequate documentation. It must be an absolutely basic featureof government that all significant matters put to Cabinet or itsCommittees must be the subject of a Cabinet paper, except inthe greatest emergency. (This is similar to the Code of Conductfor the German government.) On matters of any significance,the relevant Secretary of State must prepare a Cabinet paperwhich clearly sets out what is proposed, its merits and risks,consulting with other Secretaries of State whose departmentshave an interest in the matter; and seeking comment andagreement from colleagues at various stages as it progressesthrough the Cabinet system, or is amended significantly inParliament or elsewhere. It must be circulated to the relevantCabinet colleagues at each stage, and finally to the wholeCabinet (or Committee), several days before meetings, so thatministers may consider, and be briefed on, its implications fortheir departments and for the Government as a whole.

If Cabinet government is to undergo a revival, then Cabinetministers themselves will have to take it seriously. TheMinisterial Code already states that weekly meetings of theCabinet take precedence over all other ministerialresponsibilities, except the Privy Council; however, in practicethis has been increasingly disregarded in recent years. The rulemust be reaffirmed. The Privy Council exception should beremoved. Technology can be harnessed to reconcile this rule

with the complexity of current ministerial schedules, and inparticular with the demands of meetings abroad; when it isabsolutely impossible for ministers to be physically present,they should be able to take part by videoconferencing. Inmodern times, it is even easier than it used to be for Cabinetmembers to get back from distant engagements to a Cabinetmeeting.

Why should any future requirement for attendance be any moreeffective than the existing rule? To some extent, making Cabinetmeetings meaningful once more will give a greater incentivefor attendance; in addition, our proposals for entrenchment in aCode, described earlier, are absolutely essential to give addedforce to the requirement. There is no reason why attendance atCabinet should not be made a matter of public record.

In the present Government is has become the practice for thewalls of the Cabinet room during meetings to be lined withspecial advisers and civil servants. These people should beexcluded. Cabinet members should be capable of carrying outtheir role on their own. Only the Cabinet Secretary, keeping afull minute, and the occasional very senior lead figure on animportant subject, such as the Chief of the General Staff or theAttorney General, should ever join Ministers at a cabinetmeeting. No Press Officer should ever attend.

Quality in place of quantity: legislation,information and statistics

Informed debate and scrutiny are essential to good government,and the current pattern of ill-thought out publications, dubioususe of statistics and hurried, often opaque legislation requiresurgent remedy. There is a need to clarify the ways in which bothlegislation and government documents are prepared, with theaim of a drastic improvement in standards.

The Code should prescribe a role for a powerful LegislationCommittee – combining the functions in the past sometimessplit between a Legislation, and a Future Legislation,Committee – chaired by a senior minister, preferably one withextensive legal experience. Its function would be to examineproposed legislation not merely in terms of the Parliamentarytimetable, but also to examine the need for the legislation andto ensure that Bills are complete, coherent and well explainedbefore entering Parliament. The minister would have to appearbefore the Committee to persuade it that this was, in his or herjudgement, the case. These Cabinet Committee functions shouldbe matched by counterpart arrangements in the Commons withmuch greater pre-legislative scrutiny. The prospect of anembarrassing criticism or rejection of a Bill would give theminister an incentive to be rigorous in assessing colleagues’proposals.

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In a later paper, we will set out in more detail proposals forfuller Parliamentary scrutiny and debate which should have thedesirable effect of putting a tight limit on the amount oflegislation that can be taken through Parliament at any one time.These will centre on a Business Committee of the House ofCommons, which would examine the government’s plannedlegislative programme in advance of the Queen’s Speech andassess the number of Parliamentary days needed for each bill.The government party would of course have the final say, butwe believe that the House of Lords – especially a reformedLords confident in its authority – would feel that Bills for whichthe Business Committee’s timetabling recommendations hadbeen ignored should be subject to more lengthy scrutiny and beyet more open to amendment.

We recommend that the next Conservative government shouldcommit itself to paying full heed to the Business Committee’srecommendations and to legislate with proper regard to the timeneeded for scrutiny.

In recent times, too many government publications, such asWhite or Green Papers, have failed to reach standards ofobjectivity and detail that would make them usefulcontributions to public debate. We recommend that the nextConservative government empower the Committee onStandards in Public Life to establish a code of conduct forgovernment publications, monitoring their clarity andobjectivity. The code would also cover the use of statistics ingovernment publications and the appropriate disclosure ofchanges in government policy. This work should be supportedby the National Audit Office and the Office of NationalStatistics.

The Office of National Statistics should be given completestatutory independence, with a monopoly of decision on whatstatistics are to be produced and how they are to be defined.The timing of releases should be under the control of the Office,not ministers, and should be made available to everyonesimultaneously. Government ministers should have only a fewhours’ advance notice and not be able to make use of the data.The government’s current legislative proposals on this issue arewelcome as far as they go, but that is not far enough. Inparticular, we believe that reform proposals must clearly governstatistical work across government departments, not just theONS. This should be accomplished by an annual audit of allgovernment statistics by the NAO, assisted by the independentONS. Our proposal for the NAO to have oversight of the use towhich those statistics are put in other government documentsprovides an additional safeguard. The ONS and the NationalStatistician should be answerable to an independent board, itselfanswering to Parliament along similar lines to the operation ofthe NAO.

Special advisers and the Civil Service

The changes of recent years have had a disastrous effect on themorale and effectiveness of the Civil Service. We believe thatthe independence of the Civil Service must be strengthened andits creeping politicisation contained and partially reversed. Asin our other proposals, we are not seeking to turn the clock backto a supposed golden age. Special advisers have been a featureof Whitehall for decades, and with good reason; ministers needalternative sources of advice – from both a political andtechnical perspective – to offer some counterweight to theofficial machine and the ‘departmental view’. This is also trueof the Prime Minister; hard though it may sometimes be toremember, a major preoccupation of debate in previous decadeswas the ‘hole in the centre’, the lack of a strong driving forceoutside the departments. Much commentary focused on thelimited support given to the Prime Minister by comparison withleaders in many other advanced democracies. What is needed isgreater clarity over the scale and role of external support for thePrime Minister and for Ministers.

Since 1997 there has been a bewildering multiplication andfrequent restructuring of ‘units’ within No. 10 and the CabinetOffice. Leaving aside the expansion of communications, themain features have been: the expansion of policy support in No.10, and its merger with the private office to create the PolicyDirectorate; the combination of ‘joined up government’ andlonger-term, ‘blue-sky’ thinking within the Cabinet Office’sStrategy Unit; and, also within the Cabinet Office, the DeliveryUnit and other bodies with a mission to improve public sectoroutcomes. These developments have been accompanied by theblurring of lines between the Prime Minister’s staff and theCabinet Office, and by the mingling of civil servants and specialadvisers within units.

We believe that this structure should be both smaller andsimpler. There will still be a need for independent policysupport – including longer-term thinking - and some progress-chasing capacity at the centre. We believe that this should beaccountable to the Prime Minister. The Cabinet Office, bycontrast, should be clearly separate, responsible to the Cabinetas a whole and facilitating its work. We believe that the effortsto ‘join up’ government at the centre – which is, after all, whateffective Cabinet Committee work should do – and tomicromanage the public sector has overburdened both thePrime Minister and the Cabinet Office. It is in this area that webelieve that significant reductions can be made, and werecommend that the next Conservative government scrap theDelivery Unit. What is needed instead is a slim and effectivemachine working through Secretaries of State and departments. We recommend that the next Conservative government shouldreduce the number of special advisers (in Number Ten and inministries) by at least half as part of its general commitment to

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a smaller, more streamlined central government operation. Thiscap would need also to take account of unpaid advisers. Inaddition to role and numbers, the authority of special advisersshould be clarified, reasserting that their role is to advise ratherthan to direct. We believe that the Code should make clear thatsuch advisers should never – as has happened under the currentadministration – undertake roles such as the chairing ofmeetings with Ministers present. Travel abroad should be forresearch purposes, not for acting as a representative of aminister. We also believe that media relations are not part of theusual role of the special adviser, and that in undertaking such arole they must require the express authority of the Secretary ofState. In doing so, their actions would be clearly differentiatedfrom those of civil servant press officers in normal objectivegovernment communications.

We believe that a Civil Service Act, to regularise the relationsbetween ministers, civil servants and special advisers, isessential. In particular, it should clarify and give aParliamentary basis to the impartiality of the service and theprotection of personnel decisions from political interference.There are very useable models to hand in the draft Billprepared by the Public Administration Select Committee –provisions of which include putting the Civil ServiceCommission on a statutory basis, and giving it powers toinvestigate possible infringements of its Code – and in therelevant sections of Lord Lester’s bill on the Royal Prerogative.The government has long suggested its willingness to respondto these proposals and carry through a Civil Service Act, but ithas consistently put off doing so.

Such measures are also necessary to manage the change thathas taken place within the Civil Service in recent years, withincreasing recruitment of outsiders to senior posts. We believethat this is a healthy development – though there is a need toprotect the morale and the institutional memory of the CivilService – but that there must be safeguards against this being atool of covert politicisation. In particular, the Civil ServiceCommissioners must be able to enforce open and meritocraticselection without being ignored by ministers or theestablishment hierarchy of the department involved. Ministersand Permanent Secretaries may put arguments to theCommissioners but both cronyism and ‘buggins turn’ must beabolished.

We believe that a Civil Service Act must also provide for clearerlines of accountability. The present situation leaves a vacuum.The doctrine of ministerial responsibility clearly cannot beapplied universally in the complex and large-scale operationsof modern government, yet it provides cover for officials fromfull scrutiny. Attempts to provide a clear-cut breakdown that isapplicable to all cases – such as the theory that ministers areresponsible for policy, civil servants or agencies for execution

– have not carried conviction and break down in practice. Inaddition, while the belief that the Civil Service is a job for lifehas long been a myth, there is a widespread perception that civilservants are more protected than are people in other occupationsfrom the consequences of poor performance. Ministers have aright to expect standards of effectiveness and loyalty at least ashigh as exist in other walks of life. Permanent Secretariesshould be accountable for seeing that the disciplinaryprocedures necessary to achieve this are carried out.

Ministerial oversight of such decisions should be limited, sincethis would clearly give scope for politicisation. Theresponsibility of the Permanent Secretary for managementissues within his or her department must be defined andreinforced under the Act (the same goes for the head of anagency), and they must be responsible for this to Parliament.This responsibility of the Permanent Secretary rather than theSecretary of State to Parliament would parallel the PermanentSecretary’s role as Accounting Officer for the use of publicmoney. This should similarly extend to giving PermanentSecretaries the right to seek a formal instruction from theMinister (which is reported to the NAO) if the Minister wantsto overrule a Permanent Secretary’s advice that a decision isillegal, wasteful or impracticable.

So far, Commons Select Committees have shown only modestappetite for examining management issues, the notableexception being the Public Accounts Committee, supported inits work by the NAO. It may be that the Public AdministrationSelect Committee, if given similar support to that which theNAO provides to the PAC, would be able to undertake this role;alternatively, a reformed and professionalised House of Lordsmight in the longer term be well-placed to carry out this scrutinyof management and administration.

The Royal Prerogative

Use of the Royal Prerogative – the ability for the government toact under certain circumstances without Parliamentaryapproval, a hangover from the days of absolute monarchy – hastoo often become a cover for the unaccountable use ofministerial power. In recent years, public concern has grownover the use of the Prerogative in areas such as treaty-makingand decisions of war and peace.

As with our proposals for the Ministerial Code, we believe thatParliament should play a central role in any reform. However,full replacement of the Royal Prerogative by Parliamentaryauthority – as implied in the Bill put before the House of Lordsby Lord Lester – would mean a radical constitutional changetowards a model seen in countries with a complex and pervasiveadministrative law. It would increase significantly the burden

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on an already overloaded Parliament and ministers. Instead, webelieve that the most significant issues of concern can beaddressed on an individual basis.

On war-making powers, we believe that Parliamentary assent –for example, the laying of a resolution in the House ofCommons – should be required to commit British troops to anywar, international armed conflict or peace-keeping activity.(There will need to be exceptions under conditions of direemergency, but with a requirement for the Prime Minister thento secure retrospective Parliamentary approval). We areimpressed by the arguments of the House of Lords SelectCommittee on the Constitution that this is best accomplishedby a Parliamentary convention.6 After the intense debate oncommitting troops to Iraq, it is hard to imagine a Prime Ministerfeeling able to act without Parliamentary sanction. But theknowledge that Parliamentary approval will have to beexplicitly secured in advance of the commitment of troops – ina timely fashion, not on the very eve of war, as was the casewith Iraq – will strengthen Parliament’s voice duringnegotiations and concentrate the minds of ministers.

The issue of treaties has some similarities. While ratification oftreaties is formally a matter for the Royal Prerogative, underthe Ponsonby Rule treaties must be put before Parliament priorto ratification, leaving open the opportunity for debate, fortwenty-one business days.7 In addition, many treaties, inparticular those relating to the EU, have significant‘consequential’ domestic legislation that must be passed: it wasthis that gave the Major government such misery over theMaastricht Treaty. However, under circumstances requiringspeedy ratification the Ponsonby Rule can be waived; in anycase, Parliament cannot amend the text of a treaty.8 Moregenerally, the same arguments over safeguards and the role ofParliament apply as in the case of war-making powers.

Thus we favour the approach of the Public AdministrationSelect Committee, and Lord Lester’s Bill, in removing treatyratification from the Royal Prerogative and requiringParliamentary consent. (This would not apply to more technicalinternational agreements, which do not need ratification.)Treaties must be laid before Parliament, along with anExplanatory Memorandum setting out their provisions, costsand benefits. Those with significant implications – essentiallythose with financial, legal or territorial implications for theUnited Kingdom or its citizens - would require fullParliamentary approval, while the remainder would simply belaid before the Houses for Parliament with automatic approvalif they were not challenged within twenty-one business days.

Other powers to be subject to Parliamentary approval shouldbe the use of the Royal Prerogative to make major re-organisations of central government and agencies, andministers’ ability to override the decisions, and otherwiseintervene in the affairs, of both elected and unelected publicbodies. These powers should, however, be examined in thecontext of a broader discussion of relations between centralgovernment, devolved and local government, and other publicbodies. This will be a topic for a later paper by the DemocracyTask Force.

Conclusion

The Democracy Task Force believes that while the nature ofgovernment has changed dramatically over the last twentyyears, the principles that guide our democracy must not. Weneed to reassert constantly the need for clear lines ofaccountability; enhanced transparency in a media age; andgreater effectiveness in light of the growing complexities ofgovernment.

The style of government seen in recent years has eroded manyof the key principles that must underpin our democraticinstitutions while not achieving any greater effectiveness indelivery. It is with this in mind that we propose therecommendations contained in this report.

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6 House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, Waging war: Parliament’s role and responsibility, HL Papers 236-I and 236-II.7 For the history and provisions of the Ponsonby Rule, see www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/ponsonbyrule,0.pdf8 Taming the Prerogative: Strengthening Ministerial Accountability to Parliament, House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee, Fourth Reportof Session 2003-04, p. 27.

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Task Force membership:

Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke QC MP (Chairman)

Ferdinand MountLaura SandysAndrew Tyrie MPRt Hon Sir George Young Bt MP

Roger Gough (editor and rapporteur)

Rt Hon Lord Butler of Brockwell and Sir ChristopherFoster are members of the Task Force and have givenexpert advice on a non-party basis. They support itsrecommendations but are not signatories to partypolitical statements expressed in this report.