Volume 15: Government and Public Administration
2. Central government organisation
Ministers

2.2 Ultimate policy responsibility lay with Ministers, who were appointed by the Prime Minister. ¹ The most significant decisions were taken by senior Ministers collectively, meeting as 'the Cabinet' chaired by the Prime Minister. The agriculture and health portfolios and those for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were all regarded as important enough to justify a Cabinet seat. ²

2.3 In order to assist with the collective development of policy and the handling of difficult issues, the Cabinet usually met once a week when Parliament was in session. Various Cabinet Ministers and a number of Ministers outside the Cabinet were also members of long-established Cabinet committees that focused on particular policy areas - for example, the Economic Affairs Committee - or ad hoc committees such as MISC 138, set up in 1989 to look at food safety issues. Papers drafted within their own Departments (and sometimes brokered in advance with other Departments) would be submitted by Ministers to these committees.

2.4 Within their Departments, Cabinet Ministers were usually assisted by two or more junior ministers. These were either Parliamentary Secretaries or Ministers of State (a higher rank for particularly responsible posts), one of whom might speak for the Department in the House of Lords. ³ Their responsibilities were decided by the departmental Minister, and they were expected to master the relevant issues and legislation, to be alert to developing problems, and to handle subordinate matters.

2.5 Mr Roger (now Lord) Freeman thought that his role as a junior Minister at the Department of Health had included:

. . . at least two aspects of keeping my eyes and ears open . . . I was certainly, throughout that period, from the receipt of the Southwood Report onwards, keeping my eyes and ears open in a Parliamentary sense, listening to what colleagues had to say, picking up comments made to me in letters. I also took . . . an even more specific interest in making sure that I was aware of Parliamentary comment and making sure that the Secretary of State was aware of it . . . I think the second way in which one was seeking to alert the Secretary of State to issues was simply in terms of what I was aware of within the Department, and indeed what one was aware of simply through reading the daily press comment. ⁴

2.6 Another former junior Minister (at MAFF), Mr David Curry, put it as follows:

. . . one of the jobs which I regarded as important in assisting the Minister was trying to look a little bit round the corner . . . from time to time I would pull ideas together and say 'What happens if this occurs?' . . . I thought it was part of a useful job to make sure the Department was thinking ahead, because so much was happening on a day-to-day basis that from time to time one needed to say 'What might happen if?' ⁵

2.7 Junior Ministers processed a heavy load of day-to-day business, including much parliamentary business (for example adjournment debates and the committee stages of Bills) and answering letters from MPs. Such correspondence, or the tabling of a Parliamentary Question (see paragraphs 3.24 and 8.12), could be the initial means by which an issue came to Ministers' attention.

2.8 Mr (now Sir) Michael Forsyth (Scottish Office) emphasised the subordinate nature of the junior ministerial role -

. . . I imagine talking to the junior Minister was a bit like talking to the organ grinder - the monkey rather than the organ grinder. ⁶

- and the need to avoid embarrassment to colleagues. Lord Skelmersdale (Northern Ireland Office) explained that his senior Minister had indicated that he was:

. . . only to approach him when . . . I was likely to get the Government into trouble, him into trouble and last of all myself into trouble. ⁷

2.9 The ways in which senior Ministers involved their junior colleagues in decision-making reflected their personal style of working and preferences. Junior Ministers were included in any ministerial briefing or policy discussions in their particular field of responsibility. Some senior Ministers preferred a systematic pattern of meetings, either daily or weekly (often referred to as 'Prayers') to discuss matters of topical interest, often without officials present. ⁸ One Secretary of State for Health, Mr William Waldegrave, held regular 'Top of the Office' meetings which included the Permanent Secretary (the most senior civil servant in the Department), the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and other officials.

2.10 The day-to-day running of Ministerial offices - the management of papers, meetings, diary and transport - was in the hands of the Private Secretaries or 'Private Office'. This was a small team of civil servants, led by high fliers whose spell in Private Office was a recognised stage in their career progression. The senior Private Secretary (PS) in each office determined which parts of the large volume of material passing through it should be particularly drawn to Ministers' attention, or required a meeting. One PS would attend and record all such meetings, and would also listen in to and make a written note of the Minister's important telephone conversations.

2.11 Because of pressure on time during the day, important submissions would normally be put in the Minister's 'Red Box' of papers for him or her to take home and read during the evening or the following morning before coming into the office. The 'weekend box' would be particularly substantial.

To facilitate easy contact and informal discussion between all the Private Offices within a Department (which included those of the Permanent Secretary and, within DH, of the CMO, as well as one for each Minister), these were usually located close together. Private Offices also worked closely with the Department's Chief Information Officer on how issues were presented in public, including responses to requests for media interviews. The role of departmental Information Officers is considered in Chapter 3.

2.12 Many Ministers appointed 'special' or 'political' advisers who commented on submissions and attended policy meetings. These were personal appointments from outside the established civil service. Their role was specifically to address the political aspects of policy and its presentation, in which the role of civil servants was restricted by longstanding conventions of impartiality and propriety that were set out formally in Departments' codes of conduct for staff. Constituency business was dealt with outside the Private Office.