Introduction

Introduction This book attempts to bring together and discuss different principles, ideas and nostrums that are used in the description of policy-making and administration in Britain. These include collective responsibility, individual ministerial responsibility, arm’s-length control, organisation by function, judicial review of administration. Together these ideas represent a large part of the apparatus that a graduate in administration might be expected to have accumulated. The problem for those advancing these concepts – usually teachers – and those receiving them – usually students – is that there is a massive disjunction in what should be the unity of theory and the elements of practice.