collective responsibility Flashcards
What’s the difference between accountability and responsibility?
responsibility refers to someone’s duty to carry out a task to completion, accountability generally refers to what happens after something has happened.
How are ministers held accountable and responsible to parliament?
Ministers have duty to parliament to account and be held to account for policy decisions and actions of the department and agencies, its highly important that ministers give accurate and truthful information to parliament correcting any errors effectively.
What is “collective responsibility”?
when the entire workforce is held responsible for any failures that the workforce may encounter not accounting the performance of individuals or teams which may have achieved.
What is the confidence principle?
fundamental principle of British constitution that the government must retain the confidence of the legislature as its x possible for the government to operate effectively w-out support of majority of people’s representatives
What is the confidentiality principle?
prevents misuse of confidential information- it protects reputation, employment may depend on it. It ensures compliance with the law.
How can collective responsibilty be said to provide clarity? Why is such clarity important?
ensures the govt speak w one voice. If the govt position is unclear, it becomes harder for opposition parties and votes to hold the govt to account and harder for business to make financial decisions and for foreign govts to work w the UK
What are the 2 ways in which collective responsibility can be temporarily set aside?
free votes- votes used on moral issues backbench MPs are free from party whips and ministers are free to vote w their conscience.
agreements to differ- govt has a clear position but cabinet agrees to suspend collective responsibility to allow ministers to vote against it.
What are some examples of both of the ways that collective responsibility may be set aside?
free votes- votes on legalising abortion or euthanasia
agreements to differ- 2016 vote on whether we should stay in the EU
Why were “agreements to differ” particularly important for the 2010-2015 coalition?
Ministerial code of 2010- said bound by collective responsibility did not apply- AV referendum, tuition fees, trident, nuclear power.
Why is it arguable that collective responsibility is respected and upheld?
ministers usually support the cabinet decisions and resign if not.
free votes and agreements to differ are fairly infrequent.
rules for confidence votes are clearly kept in statue.
Why can we argue that collective responsibility is broken, even though the ministerial code says it applies to all ministers?
its a convention not a clearly enforceable law.
ministerial law is x legally binding.
if ministers break convention- no guarantee they will feel compelled to resign or that PM will feel compelled to back them.
How did lib-dems force Cameron to suspend the convention in 2012?
backbench con MPs voted against 20120 HoL reform which would have been championed by Lib-dems. Deputy PM instructed LibDems to support the opposition amendment to delay constituency boundary reforms that have been backed by the govt.
effectively forced the PM to suspend collective responsibility.
What are Leaks? How do they undermine the convention?
ministers give journalists info secretly on condition they are not named.
Undermines convention as it leaks government info from cabinet meetings to be kept secret and private. Can undermine strength and unity of government power.
What is sofa government? Why does it undermine the convention?
PM’s will discuss policy and make decisions in smaller more informal groups w select ministers rather than formal cabinet meetings.
Undermines convention as no real sense of a collective ministers- ministers don’t agree so cannot fully take part in collective responsibility.
Why was Prime minister Theresa May accused of being too weak to enforce the convention?
Did not fire Boris Johnson after telegraph article and interview w sun on Brexit negotiations, seen that she was already too weak and had a divided cabinet over Brexit so could not fully enforce convention.
