ABSTRACT
The main controls would continue to lie with ministers or the Permanent Secretary but, once policy objectives and budgets had been established, the Agency should have as much independence as possible in deciding how objectives should be met. The crucial question was that of the line of responsibility. The Head of the Agency should be given personal responsibility to achieve the best results. As to the future role of ministers, the report recommended that ministers continue to be wholly responsible for policy but that it was unrealistic to suppose that they could have in-depth knowledge about every operational question:
The (Social Security) Benefits Agency is the largest. Others include the Child Support Agency, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, Stationery Office, Land Registry, Ordnance Survey, Patent Office and United Kingdom Passport Agency. Issues of responsibility of ministers are also raised in respect of non-departmental public bodies – ‘quangos’ – whereby state enterprises are privatised.52 A non-departmental public body is defined as a body ‘which has a role in the processes of national government but is not a government department’.53 The movement towards increased government involvement in commerce and industry stems from 1945, although public corporations had been earlier established.54 More recently, the movement has been towards privatisation, with, among others, British Rail, British Gas, British Telecom, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, and the Naval Dockyards being sold into private ownership. Accountability for such organisations, when publicly owned, was weak. Today the question is to what extent these organisations are truly private; to what extent ministers exert control over them, whether via financial power or the power to issue policy guidance; and, more importantly, the extent to which Parliament assures that ministers are accountable for the implementation of policies.
