The Cabinet Office And The Centre Of Government

Author : Ian Brodie
Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 46,6 Mb
Release : 2018-04-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780773553781

Get Book

At the Centre of Government by Ian Brodie Pdf

"Canada's prime minister is a dictator." "The Sun King of Canadian government." "More powerful than any other chief executive of any other democratic country." These kinds of claims are frequently made about Canada's leader – especially when the prime minister's party holds a majority government in Parliament. But is there any truth to these arguments? At the Centre of Government not only presents a comprehensively researched work on the structure of political power in Canada but also offers a first-hand view of the inner workings of the Canadian federal government. Ian Brodie – former chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and former executive director of the Conservative Party of Canada – argues that the various workings of the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council Office, the cabinet, parliamentary committees, and the role of backbench members of Parliament undermine propositions that the prime minister has evolved into the role of an autocrat, with unchecked control over the levers of political power. He corrects the dominant thinking that Canadian prime ministers hold power without limits over their party, caucus, cabinet, Parliament, the public service, and the policy agenda. Citing examples from his time in government and from Canadian political history he argues that in Canada's evolving political system, with its roots in the pre-Confederation era, there are effective checks on executive power, and that the golden age of Parliament and the backbencher is likely now. Drawing on a vast body of work on governance and the role of the executive branch of government, At the Centre of Government is a fact-based primer on the workings of Canadian government and sobering second thoughts about many proposals for reform.

Author : Anthony Seldon,Jonathan Meakin
Publisher : Biteback Publishing
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2016-12-08
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781785902031

Get Book

The Cabinet Office, 1916–2018 by Anthony Seldon,Jonathan Meakin Pdf

Since its creation in the depths of the Great War in December 1916, the Cabinet Office has retained a uniquely central place in the ever-changing political landscape of the last century. While the revolving door of 10 Downing Street admits and ejects its inhabitants every few years, the Cabinet Office remains a constant, supporting and guiding successive Prime Ministers and their governments, regardless of their political leanings, all the while keeping the British state safe, stable and secure. It has been at the centre of everything – wars, intelligence briefings, spy scandals, disputed elections, political crises – and its eleven Cabinet Secretaries, ever at the right hand of their political masters, have borne witness to them all. The true 'men of secrets', these individuals are granted access to the meetings that determine the course of history, trusted with the most classified information the state possesses. Written with unparalleled access to documents and personnel by acclaimed political historian, commentator and biographer Anthony Seldon, this lavishly illustrated history is the definitive inside account of what has really gone on in the last 100 years of British politics.

Author : Donald J. Savoie
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 460 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 1999-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0802082521

Get Book

Governing from the Centre by Donald J. Savoie Pdf

Agencies and policies instituted to streamline Ottawa's planning process instead concentrate power in the hands of the Prime Minister, more powerful in Canadian politics than the U.S. President in America. Riveting, startling, and indispensable reading.

Author : Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution
Publisher : The Stationery Office
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2010-01-29
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 0108459322

Get Book

The Cabinet Office and the centre of Government by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution Pdf

The House of Lords Constitution Committee have today published their 4th report of the 2009-10 session on 'The Cabinet Office and the Centre of Government' (HLP 30, ISBN 9780108459320) in which they suggest that power within the cabinet has become increasingly centralised to the Prime Minister and recommend that structures of accountability should be reformed to mirror that change. The Committee expresses support for the principles of collective responsibility but recognise that increasingly the Cabinet Office has become responsible for overseeing the delivery of government policy across departments. They stress that accountability mechanisms within the UK constitution are not set up to reflect this new reality with parliamentary and select committee scrutiny based on individual Ministers reporting to Parliament for activities within their departments. The Committee also considers the role of the Minister for the Cabinet Office, and state that the responsibilities of the post are currently poorly defined. They recommend that the Government reassess the functions of the Minister for the Cabinet Office to ensure that the postholder's responsibilities accurately reflect the strategic role the Cabinet Office plays in delivering government policy. The report goes on to consider the approach taken to changes to the machinery of government and the change in the role and function of the Lord Chancellor which took place during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister. The Committee states that the process of change involved ’wholly inadequate' consultation both within government and with the senior judiciary, and further states that there was "no justification for failure to consult on these important reforms". The Committee recommends that in future the Cabinet Office should play a formal role in investigating any machinery of government changes, particularly those with constitutional implications.

Author : Richard Kenneth Mosley
Publisher : Routledge & Kegan Paul Books
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 1969
Category : Political Science
ISBN : UOM:39015022703329

Get Book

The Story of the Cabinet Office by Richard Kenneth Mosley Pdf

Author : Anthony Seldon,Jonathan Meakin
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 40,7 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
ISBN : 1785901737

Get Book

The Cabinet Office, 1916-2016 by Anthony Seldon,Jonathan Meakin Pdf

The first, definitive history of one of Britain's most important political institutions.

Author : Simon James
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2002-01-04
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781134681068

Get Book

British Cabinet Government by Simon James Pdf

Fully revised and up-dated, this new edition of Simon James comprehensive and accessible text continues to provide an excellent insight into this central topic of British politics. It draws on the wealth of new material that has become available in recent years to shed light on the mechanisms, structure and realities of the Cabinet system in Britain from 1945 to the present 1945. Its coverage includes: · ministers and their departments · collective decision-making · the role of the Prime Minister · the strengths and weaknesses of the Cabinet system · the future of the Cabinet system. British Cabinet Government will give both A-level students and undergraduates a clear understanding of the realities of this central aspect of British politics.

Author : Luc Bernier,Keith Brownsey,Michael Howlett
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2015-05-07
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781487509965

Get Book

Executive Styles in Canada by Luc Bernier,Keith Brownsey,Michael Howlett Pdf

Canada's political regime is centred on the existence of a federal system of government within the institutions of Westminster parliamentary democracy. This system places a great deal of political power in the hands of cabinet ministers, and while cabinet systems of government in Canada have evolved at different speeds in different federal and provincial governments, they have, over the last two decades, increased centralization of administrative and legislative control in ever fewer hands. This shift has been well demonstrated by scholars such as Donald J. Savoie regarding the federal system, but little examined in the context of provincial governance. Executive Styles in Canada places equal emphasis on both levels, explaining how and in what way cabinet systems have conformed to or diverged from this general pattern. This unique collection is the only systematic, cross-provincial study of its kind, and is certain to be of great benefit to anyone interested in the structure of government in Canada.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : World Bank Publications
Page : 64 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 1999-01-01
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 082134627X

Get Book

Strategic Decisionmaking in Cabinet Government by Anonim Pdf

"Collective cabinet decisionmaking provides the institutional mechanism by which many governments prioritize their policies and guard against unpredictable policy reversals." - Mansood Ahmed, Vice President, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Network, The World Bank The style and membership of cabinets vary in every country. The heads of democratic governments form a cabinet for three principal reasons: 1. The threat that the legislature will significantly amend the government's program as expressed in the budget proposals made by the executive. 2. The threat of dismissal between elections. 3. The risk that the executive will be seen by the public as having departed from a previous tradition of cabinet government and judged poorly as a result. 'Strategic Decisionmaking in Cabinet Government' shows that cabinet government is a rational response to these risks and sets out the institutional arrangements that make the cabinet a binding device. This report recognizes the significance of the budget process for collective decisionmaking, but moves beyond the simplistic assumption that tradeoffs in cabinet government can only be made by reallocating the budget. It supports practical approaches for assessing the strength of cabinet decisionmaking arrangements and for identifying practical steps to improve the prospect that decisions will be collectively binding.

Author : Ian Beesley
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 824 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2016-12-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781351980852

Get Book

The Official History of the Cabinet Secretaries by Ian Beesley Pdf

This book is the official history of British Cabinet Secretaries, the most senior civil servants in UK government, from the post-war period up to 2002. In December 1916 Maurice Hankey sat at the Cabinet table to take the first official record of Cabinet decisions. Prior to this there had been no formal Cabinet agenda and no record of Cabinet decisions. Using authoritative government papers, some of which have not yet been released for public scrutiny, this book tells the story of Hankey’s post-war successors as they advised British Prime Ministers and recorded Cabinet’s crucial decisions as the country struggled through the exhaustion that followed World War II, grappled with a weak economy that could not support its world ambitions, saw the end of the post-war economic and social consensus and faced the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers symbol of Western dominance. It looks at events through the eyes of politically neutral senior civil servants, the mandarins of Britain. It shows how the dramatic foreshortening of timescales and global news have complicated the working lives of those who daily face the deluge of potentially destabilising events – the skills required to see dangers and opportunities around corners, when to calm things down and when to accelerate action; why secrecy is endemic when government comes close to losing control or when political ambition threatens self-destruction. This book will be of great interest to students of British politics, British history and British government.

Author : Graham White
Publisher : UBC Press
Page : 223 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2005
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9780774811590

Get Book

Cabinets and First Ministers by Graham White Pdf

What place do first ministers, along with the cabinets they select, have in democratic life in Canada? Has cabinet really become just a focus group for the Prime Minister? Do political staff and central agency bureaucrats enhance or diminish democracy? Do private members have any say in the cabinet process? In an accessible, thorough, and balanced fashion, this volume of the Canadian Democratic Audit examines the concentration of power in cabinet and the prime minister’s office. Taking the view that to explain our Westminster-style government as a benign dictatorship is an oversimplification, Cabinets and First Ministers provides an honest assessment of current conditions. With characteristic eloquence, White renders a clear account of the development, structure, and operation of cabinet, and the role of the first ministers at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels. He further discusses how the processes that support cabinet are affected by the considerable power of the first minister and looks at the ways in which they allow for the involvement of other elected members and the public. Keeping in mind the core concerns of the Canadian Democratic Audit, White also examines first ministers and cabinets with an eye to accountability and transparency – concepts which are key in effective democracy, and which, in the wake of the so-called "sponsorship scandal," have been much in the public eye. His cogent analysis does much to explain this much-scrutinized aspect of our democracy, and points the way to realistic proposals for its improvement.

Author : J. Lee,G. Jones,J. Burnham
Publisher : Springer
Page : 306 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 1998-04-22
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780230377141

Get Book

At the Centre of Whitehall by J. Lee,G. Jones,J. Burnham Pdf

This authoritative text examines the arrangements at the centre of Whitehall for advising the British prime minister and Cabinet, especially during the Thatcher and Major governments. The traditional coordinating centre has shifted from the Treasury to the Prime Minister's Office and the Chief Whip's Office in Downing Street, and to the Cabinet Office in Whitehall. Exploration of the separate but interlinking contributions made by these three parts of the centre shows they form a flexible but not entirely adequate support for modern government.

Author : J. Lee,G. Jones,J. Burnham
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
Page : 299 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 1998-06-11
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0312177305

Get Book

At the Centre of Whitehall by J. Lee,G. Jones,J. Burnham Pdf

This authoritative text examines the arrangements at the centre of Whitehall for advising the British prime minister and Cabinet, especially during the Thatcher and Major governments. The traditional coordinating centre has shifted from the Treasury to the Prime Minister's Office and the Chief Whip's Office in Downing Street, and to the Cabinet Office in Whitehall. Exploration of the separate but interlinking contributions made by these three parts of the centre shows they form a flexible but not entirely adequate support for modern government.

Author : Patrick Weller
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2018-05-04
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780192540751

Get Book

The Prime Ministers' Craft by Patrick Weller Pdf

Prime ministers are presented as ever-more powerful figures; at the same time they seem to fail more regularly. How can the public image be so different from the apparent experience? This book seeks to answer this conundrum. It examines the myth that prime ministers are growing more powerful or that prime ministerial government has replaced cabinet government, and explores the way that prime ministers work and how they use the available levers of power to build support across the political system. Prime ministers have the potential to exercise extensive power; to do so they need to exercise the skills and opportunities available: that is, they need to develop the prime ministers' craft. Using evidence from four countries with similar Westminster systems, Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, the analysis starts at the centre by examining how prime ministers reach office and how they understand their new job — those who win elections see it differently from those who replace leaders from the same party. The book then analyses the support prime ministers have from their Prime Ministers Offices and the Cabinet Offices, exploring their relations with ministers and the way they run and use their cabinet, and explains how governments work and why prime ministers are so central to their success. The book then explores their role as public figures selling the government to the parliament and the electorate and to the international community beyond. The Prime Ministers' Craft concludes by assessing how success can be judged and identifies how the different institutional arrangements have an impact on the way prime ministers work and the degree to which they are accountable.

Author : Great Britain: National Audit Office
Publisher : The Stationery Office
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2013-02-28
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0102981310

Get Book

Improving Government Procurement by Great Britain: National Audit Office Pdf

Since 2010, the government has made a number of changes to its procurement structures and processes. There have been signs of good progress in key areas: expenditure on common goods and services is more centralised; participation by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has increased; and the Government Procurement Service is an improvement on its predecessor. The creation of a Chief Procurement Officer and associated positions has formed clearer lines of responsibility at the centre, and the Cabinet Office now has a firmer grip of procurement expenditure. Overall, the NAO expresses confidence in the Service's reported savings of £426 million in 2011-12 as a result of reductions in price owing to centralised procurement. Nevertheless, there have been problems in implementing the reforms, including ineffective governance structures, unrealistic targets, incomplete data and weaknesses in contract management. Government is not maximising the potential for savings through centralised procurement. There are some operational issues with GPS's management of the central contracts, with departments raising concerns about the inconsistency of contract management and the quality of customer service. And some weaknesses in implementation mean that the centralised approach is not releasing procurement resources in departments as originally expected. Roles and responsibilities for day-to-day contract management are unclear and there are inadequate mechanisms by which departments and the centre of government can hold each other to account. The Cabinet Office will have to lead a major cultural shift across government if the centralising of buying goods and services is to deliver the significant benefits on offer.