EXTRA-Role of Cabinet, Secretariat and Secretary Flashcards
What are the 4 roles of the Cabinet ?
- Deciding on major policy to be followed at home and abroad
- Dealing with unforeseen major problems
- Coordinating the policies of different departments
- Planning for long term
What did former Premier Harold Macmillan say is the main problem for governments?
“Events, dear boy, events”
What are 4 examples of unforeseen major problems?
- crisis in EU
- sudden invasion of friendly state
- fuel crisis at home
- major disease
- covid
IN order for government to function well and for policy to be successfully carried out, what does there need to be coordination of?
governmental departments
What did Tony Blair term the pulling together between departments and ministers?
“joined up government”
Who is there a natural tension between in the Cabinet?
between the Treasury representatives and spending ministers who want more money (for health, education etc)
What makes it hard to plan for the long term in Cabinet?
ministers come and go and cabinet reshuffles can disturb this also
Who is often the work of long term planning, such as for the environment, defence and pension policy often done my?
Cabinet committees
What are Cabinet committees?
these are appointed by the PM to deal with aspects of government business. Decisions made in the committee have full Cabinet authority and may not always be taken to the whole Cabinet for discussion
How has the role of Cabinet diminished in the past decade?
the frequency and duration of meetings have both been reduced
Under who’s leadership was there 2 meetings per week?
Clement Attlee’s
From what year onwards has there only been one cabinet meeting per week?
1969
When are Cabinet meetings usually held?
on a Thursday morning
in the Attlee/Churchill years how many Cabinet meetings were there per year, of which most would last several hours?
100
How many cabinet meetings per year were there under Blair, which lasted under an hour?
40
