Cabinet government is dead say officials

A string of high profile civil servants have delivered evidence to a parliamentary committee that confirms what we have suspected for some time: decision making at the heart of government is no longer a collective process.

According to a report in the Guardian:

“In evidence to a Lords committee which is investigating the workings of the cabinet office, the senior figures declared that:

• Britain’s “great institution” of joint cabinet government is threatened by the growing power of the prime minister.

• Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have shown little understanding of cabinet government; they operate as a “small unit” and hold “cards rather close to their chest”.

• Whitehall has been politicised with Blair and Brown presiding over a “massive increase” in special advisers.

The attacks from the former cabinet secretaries, made in evidence to the Lords’ constitution committee, highlight the deep unease in Whitehall at the centralisation of power over the past decade. The senior mandarins, who normally speak in code, have let rip in undiplomatic language in their evidence.

Lord Turnbull, cabinet secretary from 2002-05, describing cabinet government as an important principle, said: “The source of a good deal of government needs to be nourished, nurtured and strongly supported by the cabinet office. Trends have been identified which in some way threaten this great institution and system, in particular the growth in profile of the prime minister … The danger I would want to avoid is the do-it-all prime minister.”“

What this means in the context of the old PM/Cab A level debate is that the PM, and Brown when he was Chancellor, made key decisions away from Cabinet. This does not mean that members of the Cabinet are unimportant, you can bear in mind the story of how Alistair Darling refused to move from the Treasury in June as evidence of that, but as Jonathan Powell, Blair’s top special adviser has stated, Cabinet as a forum is used to ratify rather than make decisions.