The Government:

After a general election, the leader of the party that gained most seats at the general election will designate the people (usually from his or her party) who will make up the government. The government is composed of an executive team of ministers and whips, who are responsible for running the country, in much the same way that a management board runs a company.

Government

Government formulates the country’s policies and is responsible for implementing them after they have been scrutinised and/or altered by Parliament. However, government and parliament are not the same thing: for example, when New Labour won the general election in 2001, not all Labour MPs became members of the government, despite being members of the governing party. Only MPs who are given ministerial posts constitute the government (i.e. secretaries of state, ministers of state and parliamentary under-secretaries of state). Those MPs remaining are known as backbenchers because they effectively sit on the benches behind the government and are not involved in formulating policy.

The government is also responsible for raising taxes, but to do this, it needs to have the consent of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons. It is accepted by convention that as a non-elected chamber, the House of Lords does not play a role in fiscal matters.

The government comprises approximately 100 members from both Houses, although most are elected members from the House of Commons. The most senior members of the government (the prime minister, all secretaries of state, the Lord Chancellor, the government Chief Whip and a minister without portfolio) form the cabinet, a smaller gathering of the government, which allows for speedier and more constructive decision-making than would be the case with a body of over a hundred.

The government divides its activity into departments (health, education, defence etc), each of which is headed by a secretary of state with overall responsibility for the department. The remit and number of departments can be changed at any time by the prime minister to reflect the needs of the country.

Secretaries of state are usually assisted by a series of non-cabinet ministers: ministers of state and parliamentary under-secretaries of state. Each department usually has at least one minister in the House of Lords so that government departments are also accountable to the upper House.

Civil Service

Government departments are staffed by civil servants. Although politically neutral, they provide vital advice and information to ministers so that they can formulate government policy or answer questions in the chamber. The scale of civil service bureaucracy is often a bone of contention (especially in relation to civil servants who act as “special advisers” and tend to have a political role).

However a professional civil service is essential to guarantee continuity within departments and to ensure that the government of the day can always base its decisions on the latest and best available information. Although ministers might have special areas of interest, they are after all politicians, not experts, and it is unusual for them to hold their position for long enough to truly become specialists. Civil servants, on the other hand, might stay in a particular department for 30 years, witnessing 3 or 4 changes of government and getting to know their subjects inside-out. Before each general election, senior civil servants prepare their departments for a possible change of government so that they are ready to implement a different set of policies, should this occur.

Civil servants do much more than just provide briefings for ministers. They are also responsible for implementing government policy through a series of bodies working at arms length from government intervention: executive agencies, non-governmental bodies and quangos (such as the HMS Prison Service, Job Centre Plus, the Food Standards Agency or the DVLA). Civil service reform is a never ending process with new initiatives announced by almost every government since the Second World War. However the introduction of executive agencies in 1992 was a real break from the previous system. This gave civil servants like those at the HMS Prison Service or the Passports Agency more scope to run their agency free from the detailed rulings of government ministers. In return, heads of agencies were expected to take greater responsibility for the workings of their organisation.

Executive agencies are not formally part of the government department as they work at arms length from ministerial involvement and are free to publish independent reports that may be critical of government activity. However, they are ultimately accountable to the minister if something goes wrong. With so many agencies in existence, the power of parliament to hold ministers responsible for the services the agencies provide has become more tenuous. The now infamous interview on Newsnight between Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard (Home Secretary at the time under the Major government), was a direct result of this change in relationship between minister and civil servant. Michael Howard was asked 17 times by Jeremy Paxman whether he threatened to overrule the former Prisons Agency’s head, Derek Lewis, by forcing him to implement government policy. Michael Howard was accused of interfering with the running of the Prisons Agency yet, when it came to taking responsibility for the Agency’s problems, it was passed on to Mr Lewis, who resigned as a result.

Despite these reforms, central government departments such as the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence remain sources of impartial advice and support to whichever government is in power.

The Budget

The Budget is an annual statement given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the House of Commons. It outlines the economic policies of the government for the forthcoming year and is also an assessment of the chancellor’s view of the state of the UK economy. It has been historically held in March to coincide with the beginning of the UK ‘tax year’.

Up until 1997 the budget contained announcements of monetary policy (policy that affects the supply of money in an economy e.g. the interest rate) and fiscal policy (government means of raising tax or spending money e.g. council tax or increasing spending on schools). However after 1997, Gordon Brown handed over control of the raising and lowering of interest rates to the Bank of England (and in particular to the Monetary Policy Committee, made up of independent economic experts) so that the chancellor now no longer has the power to set interest rates. This was because governments had been accused in the past of using interest rates to manipulate the performance of the economy in the run-up to general elections. The ‘boom and bust’ era of the 1980’s was thought to have been in part caused by such action carried out by the Conservative government of the time. As a result of these changes the budget now only contains announcements of fiscal policy (i.e. taxation and spending).

Another change made by New Labour after 1997 was the introduction of the November pre-Budget statement or ‘mini Budget’. This forecasts government spending for the forthcoming year and as a result, gives a good indication of what will be in the next March Budget.

As most government projects require money, the role of the Chancellor is of real importance. Departments such as the Home Office or the Department of Health are often in competition for spending increases. Fifty million pounds spent on police officers is fifty million pounds that won’t be spent on improving the NHS. How much government departments have to spend is therefore outlined every March. As such the Chancellor can play a key role in shaping the direction of government policy. This is why so much is made of personal splits between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, as it is vital for the Chancellor to approve proposed spending increases or tax cuts.

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