How many ministers?

Monday, 31
August 2015
The delay in the appointment of the
Cabinet of Ministers seems to indicate
that the Prime Minister and the President
are finding it difficult to select the
ministers from among the aspirants.
According to our law the number of
Ministers should be limited to 30; except
that in the case of a National
Government it could go up to 45.
The problem in having too many
ministers (apart from the higher costs it
imposes on the public) is that there can
be a problem for the administration if
there are too many ministers. So how
many ministers should there be?
We follow the system of Cabinet
government as prevails in the United
Kingdom. There a minister was originally
expected to be the head of a ministry

which included several departments and agencies which are closely related
in the functions they perform. In the UK there is no separation between a
department and a ministry.
Around 1960 the then Secretary to the Treasury Shirley Amerasinghe issued
a circular to draw attention to this fact because separate ministry offices
were being built up creating additional posts of assistant secretaries. He
pointed out that every head of department which is part of the ministry is
an assistant secretary as in UK and said there should be no separation of
the work of the ministry offices from the departments.
But Parkinsons Law operated and so many ministry offices were created
and they began to grow creating an unnecessary barrier to the smooth
communications between the minister and the secretary with the
departments. The ministry office was merely to be an office for the minister
to service him in his work. He had a permanent secretary who was the head
of the ministry who dealt with the operational control of the departments.
If we agree that a minister should be in charge of departments and that
departments engaged in allied functions should be grouped together, then
the number of ministers must be limited to the number of clusters of such
departments engaged in related functions. So there cannot be more
ministers than the number of clusters of departments forming a related
function of government work.
Public administration, both theory and practice, requires that related
functions should be co-ordinate for there is a tendency for each department
to jealously guard its turf and oppose any interference from other
departments in its work. So the need for coordination in the working of
related functions is a well-accepted principle of public administration. Such
coordination is provided by grouping departments engaged in related
functions to form a ministry. So originally the number of ministers tended to
be determined by the number of such clusters of departments to discharge
certain delineated functions.
There was the Machinery of Government Committee of 1918 (also called
the Haldane Committee) which identified distinct functions to be carried out
by the government machinery. The related issue was called the span of
control. As one writer has stated: Just as the hand of man can span only a
limited number of notes on the piano so the mind and will of man can span
but a limited number of immediate managerial contacts.
This problem came to be called in the literature of public administration
the span of control. The limit of control is partly a matter of the limits of
knowledge (each department deals with and requires a certain body of
knowledge). But it is also a matter of the limits of time and energy that any
human being has. So a supervisory officer cannot have unlimited capacity
to control a group of officials dealing in a variety of distinct functions. So an
executive of any department or enterprise can personally direct only a few
persons. He must depend on them to direct others. Thus the principle of

hierarchy came to be established in an organisation as an essential feature.

Several of our ministers who were ignorant of these principles of public
administration created administrative and policy chaos by violating the
principle of hierarchy and dealing with subordinate officials over the heads
of their superiors. This was so after 1956 when a new class of politicians
took office who were ignorant of modern governance and public
administration. Those senior public officials who served after the 1956
revolution realised the situation but could do nothing to change the
attitudes and methods of working of the new ministers. There was also a
problem of class difference. The post 1956 ministers came from a different
class than the class of educated elite from which the top ranks off the
public service were constituted. There was a difference in upbringing and
culture between the two groups.

To get back to the issue of the number of ministers, it must be

stated that the issue of the ministers relationship with
departments were ignored by the new Members of Parliament.
They wanted the posts not only for the higher remuneration the
ministers received but also for the exercise of power.
There is the theory that there is a scale of values people look
for. First they want money, then they want power, and
thereafter prestige. So while the supply of ministerial posts must
be limited for efficient public administration, the demand for
them is high. Members of Parliament want power and a
ministers post carries both power and prestige. So the rule relating
ministers to the functions came to be disregarded and a new category of
ministers without portfolios came into vogue.
So even in Britain all ministers did not have departments reporting to them
for control purposes. Some ministries in Britain also had more than one
minister. The British politicians were conscious of the fact that the
machinery of government cannot be disrupted without adverse
consequences on the quality of the administration. So they tried to
maintain intact the structure of the government as far as possible except
where a new function such as the Ministry of Science was established.
Since there cannot be two ministers in charge of the same department, the
practice grew up to have ministers without any departments under their
control. This enables the principles of efficient public administration such as
the span of control and unity of command in management to be
maintained. Our politicians should take these principles of public
administration into account and seek to maintain them in creating the posts
of ministers and in allocating functions and departments. There should be
no overlap.
Political leaders have to dispense patronage to their clients and supporters.

But there are principles that govern appointments, promotions, tenders,

etc., in the public service. These principles and procedures are essential for
good governance. So the scope for the exercise of political patronage is
limited. It should be so if we want good governance. Good governance is no
magic formula. It requires ministers to follow tried and tested principles and
procedures such as the tender procedure, transparent recruitment
procedures and so on. These principles and procedures are essential to
ensure good governance.
To wind up the following conclusion reached by the Machinery of
Government Committee in Britain 1918 is useful.
They said the Cabinet should be small in number preferably 10 or at most
15. Henry Fayol, another theorist in public administration, said more or less
the same thing.
Posted by Thavam