The Politics of Accountability in the Modern State

Matthew Flinders

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351800822
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This title was first published in 2001: In this compelling work, Matthew Flinders examines how far alternative forms of accountability have evolved and the extent to which they remedy the current shortcomings of the parliamentary system. Adopting a pluralistic perspective, this exploration of the accountability of the core executive is clearly grounded in research methodology, thus ensuring the book makes a valid, incisive contribution to the literature. Features include: - A detailed study of the location of power and mechanisms of accountability in modern government which challenges the largely prosaic existing literature - Useful summaries of the key tensions and trends within constitutional infrastructure - A new and refreshing approach to the study of central government - Insightful critiques of major governmental policies This intriguing volume will be of interest to undergraduates, post-graduates and lecturers for courses on legislative studies, central government reform, public administration, British politics and research methods.

PART ONE HISTORY AND THEORY

1 Reinventing Accountability

1.1 Introduction

This book examines the accountability of the core executive in the United Kingdom from a pluralistic perspective which appreciates the existence of multiple and often conflicting processes of accountability.¹ The accountability of ministers and government as a whole has been the focus of intense attention in recent years,. Advocates of the dominant paradigm of new public management have claimed enhanced accountability as one of their major objectives. At the same time, revelations involving political corruption have created cynicism regarding the processes of government and amplified demands for reform. Yet, there is a sameness within the literature on this topic. Not only are accountability and responsibility normally conflated, but also the Westminster model is employed as the only form of analysis. Ministers are often portrayed as irresponsible. This study adopts a more complex representation of accountability which acknowledges that within the framework of the Westminster model there are other competing forms of accountability operating.²

However, it is suggested that the development of alternative forms of accountability have been critically affected due to their evolution and implementation within a constitutional framework constructed upon the demands and processes of ministerial responsibility. This chapter examines the history of ministerial responsibility and its centrality to the British constitution. It then offers a definition of accountability and responsibility, whilst also emphasising that accountability is a multilayered concept which can be informal or formal, can operate in a range of directions and can be conveyed through a number of ‘codes of accountability’. The next section examines the evolving mechanisms of accountability within the British Westminster model. It also reviews the three models of accountability which form the basis of this book. First, it is necessary to examine the importance of ministerial responsibility within the British constitution.

1.2 Ministerial Responsibility and the Theory of the British State: History, Permanence and Significance

The convention of ministerial responsibility forms the cornerstone of the British constitution. Its importance cannot be overstated or ignored. It shapes the structure of government, the procedures of Parliament and the constitutional relationships on which the British conception of ‘the state’ stands.³ The ideas of the ministerial department and ministerial responsibility continue to dominate the arguments of those who defend the constitutional status quo and those who call for radical reform. Ministerial responsibility is, nevertheless, a complex and enduring convention. Its influence underpins all spheres of government activity. The aim here is not to examine the utility of ministerial responsibility but to review the way in which modem British government developed and particularly how this evolution gave primacy to a convention that contained mutually supportive yet contradictory strands.

There were three major innovations in British governmental machinery in the nineteenth century: the creation of a meritocratic professional civil service recruited through open competition; the establishment of elected multi-purpose local authorities; and the ministerial department.⁴ Of these, despite its fundamental importance, the latter has received least attention. The Reform Act of 1832 marks a fitting starting point to review the history of the ministerial department, as it marks a turning point in the relationship between the executive and Parliament.⁵ After the Reform Act, Parliament’s interest in controlling the administrative machinery increased. Up to the mid – nineteenth century, it was common practice to vest administrative powers in appointed boards. This continued up to the mid – 1850s as parliamentary appreciation of the virtues of individual ministerial responsibility grew, the ministries that existed became better equipped to take on new functions and the weight of tradition to give new functions to new boards waned.⁶ Support for the ministerial department was engendered by the work of influential commentators such as Bentham, Mill, Bagehot and Toulmin-Smith.⁷

One board in particular aroused so much parliamentary attention that it played a central role in fostering support for the idea of the ministerial department. The Poor Law Commission was the subject of intense controversy. The Poor Law Commissioners formed a highly centralised agency independent of ministers and Parliament. The lack of an effective link between the Commission and legislature left Parliament devoid of control and the commissioners unable to explain their actions. The Commission was replaced by a ministry in 1847. The Poor Law Commission proved significant for two reasons: the controversy surrounding the Commission was used by commentators in support of wider reforms to the central administration; and it highlighted the benefit of having a recognised channel of communication between the administration and House of Commons.⁸ The Poor Law Commission incident heightened and focused the Commons’ awareness of its powers.⁹ Between the first and second Reform Acts ‘…the House was the real arbiter of government fortune…it did not merely want to legislate, it was suspect of wanting to govern’.¹⁰ Parliament resented the independence and insularity of boards, and from 1855 their numbers were drastically reduced and their functions placed in the hands of ministerial departments.¹¹ Those boards that continued to exist found their independence curtailed and encountered a far higher degree of ministerial involvement in their day-to-day activity. For example, the National Debt Commission did not meet at all after 1861, and its work was conducted by officials under the supervision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

These nineteenth-century innovations were premised on the belief that ministerial responsibility demanded departmental organisation and that ministerial responsibility and the department model should be applied throughout central government. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the demise of appointed boards – Bentham had been advocating the virtues of ‘single-seatedness’ for some time before 1832 – had been sealed by Parliament’s faith in the individual responsibility of ministers. By the end of the Crimean War, both theoretical and practical factors had ensured the acceptance of individual ministerial responsibility as the normal administrative arrangement for central government.¹² In 1866, Todd gave an explicit formulation of the relationship of direct and universal ministerial responsibility to the structure of the central administration:

It is no arbitrary rule which requires that all holders of permanent offices must be subordinate to some Minister responsible to Parliament, since it is obvious that without it, the first principles of our system of government – the control of all branches of the administration by Parliament – would be abandoned.¹³

Not only was the dominance of the convention buttressed by the reform of the civil service but also by procedural changes in the House of Commons. The Commons reformed its procedures to reflect its change from passivity to activity in relation to the administration of the state. The 1860s saw the creation of the Public Accounts Committee and the Comptroller and Auditor General. Supply debates became regular occasions for scrutinising the administration, and the old system of petitions was replaced by the Parliamentary Question. These procedural changes entrenched the convention of ministerial responsibility and emphasised the position of ministers as the focus of responsibility as opposed to the abstraction of responsibility to be found in a collegiate authority.

Despite the continued centrality of ministerial responsibility, after 1906 the dominance of the ministerial department as the building block of the state abated.¹⁴ The legislation of the Liberal government expanded the horizons of the state rapidly, in social services and industry for example, and much of the new work was entrusted to boards rather than departments.¹⁵ There was a reluctance to increase the amount of administrative power vested in the executive and a feeling that some of the functions would be best placed at a distance from party politics. As many of the functions were industrial and commercial, there was also a feeling that the orthodox administrative department might be too inflexible and its staff too cautious (factors which have fuelled the hiving-off of functions throughout this century).¹⁶ So after 1906 there was a deliberate attempt to bypass the ministerial department in favour of appointed boards enjoying partial independence of ministerial and parliamentary control.¹⁷ Despite this, the ideal of the ministerial department was canonised in The Haldane Report of 1918.¹⁸

A number of factors demand that the constitutional dexterity of the convention of ministerial responsibility to Parliament be unwrapped. First, it is clear that there was never any agreement as to either the exact boundaries of ministerial responsibility or the underpinning rules that upheld the convention. Jeremy Bentham was adamant that ministers should not be parliamentary, by which he implied they should have the right to speak in Parliament but not sit in Parliament or vote.¹⁹ Lord Palmerston regarded a permanent civil service as a danger to, not a condition of, ministerial responsibility.²⁰ Secondly, the idea of the ministerial department never received the degree of universality as an organisational form that Bagehot demanded. Even during the second half of the nineteenth century boards existed, and there was a large degree of organisational deviation. After 1906, the growth of the state was largely administered by appointed boards, public corporations and non-departmental public bodies²¹ (a trend that has continued throughout the twentieth century).²² Finally, even the main proponents of the idea of the ministerial department accepted the limitations of the concept. Bentham acknowledged that ministerial responsibility was constrained by the realistic scope of ministerial vigilance: responsibility depended on directive and dislocative powers that could not usefully apply to subordinates so distant that an ‘exercise’ was effected before it was ‘excluded’.²³ Sir Henry Taylor, though supporting Bentham, wrote: ‘The far greater proportion of duties which are performed in the office of a Minister are and must be performed under no effective responsibility’.²⁴

Post-war developments have presented doctrinal and practical challenges because they so markedly contrast with the normative and empirical assumptions of the theory of the ministerial state. However, as demonstrated above, the central problems and inconsistencies of the ministerial state were present from its beginnings. What then made the idea of the ministerial department so attractive and has, in turn, ensured its enduring influence within the British constitution? Beattie offers an answer to this question through an exploration of two distinct views of ministerial responsibility.²⁵ Both approaches explain the convention’s adoption in the mid-nineteenth century, its fundamental inconsistencies and its enduring qualities. Beattie distinguishes two strands – a more representative ‘Whig’ view which stressed the need for political control to be ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Preface
• Overview
• PART ONE HISTORY AND THEORY
• PART TWO ACCOUNTABILITY MODELS AND CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
• PART THREE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION AND CONCLUSION
• Methodology
• Bibliography
• Index