ABSTRACT
The policy-making system rests on a triangular relationship. In one corner stands the individual departmental minister. In the second stands the Prime Minister. In the third is what we may call the “Cabinet system”: those collective mechanisms in which policy decisions are discussed and/or decided – the Cabinet itself, Cabinet committees and other ad hoc mechanisms increasingly used in recent years through which ministers collectively discuss policy. Britain is governed by the creative friction generated by putting temporary ministers in charge of more permanent civil servants. Although there often develops a “bush telegraph” of special advisers across departments, there seems to be little formalised contact between them, except in the course of normal inter-departmental business. Whitehall departments are not homogenous: their cultures vary widely. Some friction between ministers and officials is unavoidable, even positively desirable, because they are different types of people performing different functions. Ministers are temporary and, as far as departmental business goes, amateur.
