The Cabinet Office
and the Centre of Government
CHAPTER 1: Introduction
1. In March 2009, the Committee began an inquiry
into "the contemporary workings of the Cabinet Office and
the centre of government." The origin of the Cabinet Office
can be traced back to 1916:
"The Cabinet Secretariat was formed in December
1916 to record the proceedings of the Cabinet; to transmit the
decisions to 11 departments concerned in giving effect to them
or otherwise interested; to prepare agenda papers, arrange for
the attendance of Ministers and other persons concerned, and procure
and circulate documents required for discussion; and to attend
to correspondence connected with the work of the Cabinet. Until
this point no formal record had been made of the proceedings of
Cabinet. Primarily this role related to the Cabinet itself but
was extended to cover Cabinet committees as they were established."
(Cabinet Office memorandum, p 119)
2. The role of the Cabinet Office has evolved
over time. The Cabinet Office states now that its three core functions
are supporting the Prime Minister, supporting the Cabinet, and
strengthening the Civil Service. (p 117)
3. The Cabinet Office cannot be viewed in isolation
from the other principal elements of the "centre of government"—the
Treasury and the Prime Minister's Office. We therefore decided
that the inquiry should take account of these three elements,
the relationships between them, and the roles of the Cabinet Secretary,
the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Minister
for the Cabinet Office. We have attempted to ensure that the Cabinet
Office remains the focus of this inquiry, but have also sought
to reflect upon the role of other participants at the centre of
government.[1]
4. The centre reflects and impacts upon several
key features of the UK's structure of government:
- The role of the Prime Minister;
- Cabinet government and the principle
of collective ministerial responsibility;
- Departmental responsibility and
accountability for policy;
- The way in which policy originates
and is co-ordinated across departments;
- The accountability of government
to Parliament; and
- The role of the Cabinet Secretary
and the Civil Service.
5. We asked each oral witness what they saw as
the main constitutional principles relating to consideration of
the Cabinet Office and the centre of government. Five themes emerged:
- Accountability of the centre;
- The role of the Prime Minister;
- The role of Cabinet and the principle
of collective responsibility;
- The constitutional role of the
Civil Service and its relationship with other key players; and
- The changing role and function
of the centre.
6. Rachel Lomax, a former departmental Permanent
Secretary, told us that "the big one is accountability. If
you have a department at the centre that defines itself as being
responsible for making government work better, which is what the
Cabinet Office does at the moment, the question of who is it accountable
to, and for what, is something which needs to be thought about
quite carefully." (Q 184)
7. This report considers:
- Whether the function of the Cabinet
Office in supporting the Cabinet has changed, and if so, how;
- The roles of the Prime Minister,
the Cabinet Secretary and the Minister for the Cabinet Office;
- The nature of the Cabinet Office's
relationships with the Cabinet, the Prime Minister's Office, HM
Treasury, and other government departments;
- The extent to which the Cabinet
Office and the centre are subject to effective parliamentary accountability;
- Whether the centre provides for
effective co-ordination of the Executive's activities.
8. In our view, structures of accountability
should mirror structures of power, and where structures of power
have changed, the structures of accountability should be adjusted
accordingly. Two considerations flow from this view:
- Upholding and improving parliamentary
accountability;
- Ensuring that all elements
of the centre, and all aspects of the centre's work are transparent.
9. In the following three chapters we examine
the role of the Cabinet Office in relation to each of its three
core functions. In Appendix 3 we recite the historical context
for the development of the centre, and seek to explain how it
operates today.
10. The Committee took oral evidence from 28
witnesses over ten sessions, and received 15 written submissions.
We have been assisted in our work by Professor David Richards,
Reader, Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, who has
acted as Specialist Adviser for the inquiry.
1 See Appendix 4 for a diagrammatic representation
of the centre. Back
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