Executive Accountability

Question 1

Collective Responsibility (3):

Answer 1

• collective responsibilityalso known ascollectiveguilt is a concept in which individuals areresponsiblefor other people’s actions by tolerating, ignoring, or harbouring them, without actively collaborating in these actions
• no minister may, in answering to parliament for his own department, disclaim responsibility for actions resulting from ‘decisions of government’, whether taken by the cabinet, an inner group of ministers, cabinet committees, or other interdepartmental processes
• each minister is expected to support and defend the actions of other ministers and of the government, both in speaking and voting in the house and in making public statements outside

Question 2

Individual Responsibility:

Answer 2

• each minister is responsible to parliament for the conduct of his or her department, and for the actions carried out by the department in pursuit of government policies or in the discharge of responsibilities laid upon him or her as a minister
• ministers are accountable to parliament
• individual responsibilityis the idea that human beings choose, instigate, or otherwise cause their own actions. a corollary idea is that because we cause our actions, we can be held morally accountable or legally liable