UNIT 8: THE BRITISH

GOVERNMENT
 CONTENT
I. INTRODUCTION

II. THE CABINET

III. THE PRIME MINISTER

IV. THE CIVIL SERVICE

V. CENTRAL & LOCAL GOVERN

VI. LOCAL SERVICES

 The Monarch: Queen Elizabeth II

Parliament Government S. Court

(Legislative Body) (Executive Body) (Judicial Body)
Making laws Executing Laws Making legal judgments
Speaker of Par. Prime Minister Ministry of Justice

Home Secretary: prisons & police

Lord Chancellor: judges, magistrates & legal officers

Note: magistrates: judges in low courts

Courts: Supreme court

Court of Appeal
General court
 I. INTRODUCTION

What is “government”?

 First, all the politicians: → appointed by the Monarch on the

advice of the Prime Minister to help run government
departments

→ all these politicians usually known as ‘ministers’

→ All coming from the “House of Commons”

 Limited to only the most powerful politician:

 Prime Minister

 His cabinet = ministers

 Heads of the government departments

 About twenty people in the cabinet

 MINISTERS & DEPARTMENTS
 Heads of departments → “Secretary of State for …”

 The minister in charge of Law & inside the country:

“Home Secretary” → the “Home Office”
 The one in charge of foreign issues → “Foreign
Secretary” → “Commonwealth Office”
 No terms of “interior” and “exterior” Departments
 No longer coalition in the British government in
the House of Commons

BUT NOW
Unlike most other European countries →“single-
party-government”

All members of the government → the same political

party → collective responsibility
 Equal responsibility for any government’s policy
no matter whether a junior or a senior member
 Holding different opinions, but keeping theirs
private
 No criticism of the government in public or else a
resign
 II. THE CABINET

The cabinet meeting: once a week.

 Not to be criticized by important members of its party 
the leading members of the party  members in the
cabinet
 To be tied by the convention of collective responsibility of
any policy of the government
 To keep strictly secret any content of their meetings
 CABINET OFFICE

Running a busy communication network

 Keeping ministers in touch

 Drawing up the agendas for cabinet meetings

 Having a variety of cabinet committees

 CABINET COMMITTEES
 Appointed by the cabinet

 Looking into details of various matters

 The people working here: called civil servants – not

necessarily politicians
 HISTORY OF THE CABINET
‘Cabinet’

→ Advice in privy or private (in the sense of a small

room) to the monarch

→ Advisors to the monarch

 Originally in the late 16th Century
Mainly King Charles’s privately selected advisers

No formal recognition and unfamiliar with British politics

In the 18th Century

King George I’s informal group of important ministers &
officials
Over the years, taking their effective power
 Today’s Cabinet (grown is size)
 current ministers
 most important ex-ministers
HOWEVER
A too rigid and formal body = real cabinet → real decision
makers here
 III. PRIME MINISTER
 PM: Traditionally not important:

 No formal office or residence

 No special name on the residence

 One place for working and living (10 Downing Street

– working downstairs & living top floor)
 Moving out the office if lost an election or no longer
in the office
 III. THE PRIME MINISTER
 Prime Minister: Leader of the governing party in the
House of Commons

Prime Minister The Monarch

With full power With little power

 Though the “first among equals”, the most powerful
among other ministers
 The patronage (power to appoint people to all positions)
and to confer honors on people → PM
 PM’s power to “cabinet reshuffle” _ the “in” and
“out” or “moving around the positions” of cabinet
members
 The PM’s image →most publicized by media

 The PM: most updated to all national information

  All ministers: busy on their departments

 The cabinet committee report’s directly to the PM

 The cabinet office: under the PM’s control and in

his own living building
 PM’s right & power to decide un-discussed matters
& the convention of ‘collective responsibility’
 IV. THE CIVIL SERVICE

What is the CIVIL SERVICE?

 Senior administrative jobs in government
departments

except for armed forces

 British civil service: Always stability →Unlike
other countries’ governmental coming & going
  Running the government’s day-to-day jobs &
implementing its policy
 Most senior civil servant’s nick name in a
ministry: “Permanent Secretary”
 HOWEVER, the top civil servants: still unknown
to the public
 British civil service is a career with
 Long-time serve (perhaps more than 20 years)

 High salary (even higher than that of a minister)

 Absolute job security (in comparison to ministers)

 A good chance of being awarded

 Knowing the jobs more than ministers

  Overwhelming & controlling of power over
ministers from the top civil servants
 Reportedly, many ministers’ struggle for power
with their top civil servants
 Top civil servants → really governing the country
 Criticism To The Civil Servants’ Inefficiency
Mostly graduating from Oxford or Cambridge –
mainly learning history or classical languages
Having not enough expertise in economics or
technology
  REFORM

 Being limited in their own closed world → Not

realizing the concerns of most people in society

→ Reforms & assistance from experts and political

advisers from outside
 V. CENTRAL & LOCAL GOVERNMENT
OTHER COUNTRIES GREAT BRITAIN
* The USA & Canada: • Top-down
bottom-up
• Power over the locals
* Each state has its own
* Restructuring in the
power:
grass-root level:
 making its own laws
- Abolishing some local
 collecting taxes councils
* Federalism: - Bringing new ones into
Decentralism between existence
the central and states
 V. CENTRAL AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT
CENTRAL LOCAL

Elected representatives = MPs Elected councilors =

Representatives
Working in Parliament Working in Town Hall / County
Hall
Outnumbered by three times Three times in number

Making laws and policy Dealing with more public affairs

performed by civil servants Free from the central interference
with their daily work
No responsibility with a Making policy implemented by local
particular geographical area government officers
  Local’s collecting property taxes

(but not enough to provide services required by the

central)

→ Imposing upper limits on the amount of council taxes

→ Sharing the money out b/w local councils

→ Getting half of the income from the national

government
 No more controlling hospitals and school affairs
  The Central’s collecting other taxes

Due to negative conducts from the locals → controlling

* the way to collect taxes by the locals

* the way to conduct their affairs

 Now national party politics’ dominating over local
politics
 Rare successful independent candidates at national
local elections
 VI. LOCAL SERVICES

Most numerous services for the public provided by the

local government
Public hygiene
Environmental health inspection
Health protection and
Public library
 Public Hygiene or Environmental Inspection
*Collecting rubbish from outside people’s homes
*Cleaning public places
*Caring environmental protection (pollution, chemical
wastes)
 Health Protection
*Providing public swimming pools (with fees)
*Building public parks (with no fees)
*Providing children’s playgrounds and sports fields
(reserved in advanced on payment)

Public Libraries – a well-known Service

Books, newspapers and magazines: free of charge
CDs and videos: available for hire
Library cards: the most common identification
Thank You