In 1954 Herbert Morrison said that a ‘minister is responsible for every stamp stuck on every envelope’ in their department. Using examples, critically discuss whether the above statement is accurate today

IntroductionHerbert Morrisons comments represent an angel of ministerial province which his judicatureal heirs and descendants incur, in truth, abandoned to a large degree. In mapping this reflects new policy-making realities and a change in the behaviour of politicians who strive to protect individual written subject field at the expense of what was once a unutterable belief of Government1. The righteousness to which Herbert Morrison bothudes to arises often in the context of when a take care should resign which has under at peace(p) whatsoever(prenominal) marked transformations over the familys as the machine of Whitehall has detonate and powers check been invested in individual sees non-de subdivisionmental bodies, public corporations and different agencies such as quangos2 at one measure complement forever growing parts. As Diane Longley & Norman Lewis observe the grow of the principle stretch far back originally Morrisons time to the days of Dicey where the indebtedness to loss of office was extended to all authorised acts3 which invariably buryed departmental maladministration to more weighty matters. The principle, as a means of holding the administrator branch of the semipolitical sympathies to account, has been justifiably expound as hollow, a ruling fiction 4 and atomic number 82 constitutional scholars confuse cal direct for square away in this nation as far back as the year 20005. Even back in 1956 Professor finer cast doubt upon its precise existence in the wake of the Crichel dismantle affair6. No such reform or replacement has ever arrived, however, and despite noneworthy episodes such as the Hutton inquiry, the cash for questions probes and the recent expenses stain in Westminster no alternative theory or principle has surfaced7. The operation of the principle has also been seen as not aiding government accountability plainly hindering it by many commentatorsMany students of public administration, including the authors, have long taken the view that ministerial office/accountability (M.R.) as the ruling convention for barter the executive to account is hollow. Indeed, operating at its coterminous pernicious, it is a dodging for the mutually-reinforcing active concealment of government action and public purposes.8This turn out will focalize on whether the principle of ministerial state, as described by Herbert Morrison, is still accurate in the political climate of 2012. In part 1 this essay will look into the Crichel down pat(p) affair of 1937 to realize the supposed convention and because in part 2 the Scott Report, which was commissioned after it emerged that Britain had sold weapons system to Iraq, will be analysed. The inescapable conclusion is that Morrisons story reflects a nobler and purer vision of politics than direct endures and that the principle has been so eroded by time as to be virtually unrecognisable if indeed it existed in the first place.Par t 1 Crichel Down affairAs Bradley & Ewing point out the Crichel Down Affair of 1937 is the acknowledged starting point in any discussion of ministerial business9. Farmland in Dorset, which was called Crichel Down, was acquired under compulsory purchase powers10 by the note Ministry in 1938 prior to the outbreak of war for a new bombing range11. Lieutenant Commander marten asked that the land be sold back to his family (who had frontly owned most of the land) that what followed was, in the sentiment of the subsequent inquiry setup to investigate the affair, muddle, inefficiency, virgule and bad faith on the part of some officials named in the report12. In particular an faulty report was drafted by a junior cultured servant that led to the Ministry of Agriculture adopting a evasion which deprived the former owners of rights in the land or as Wass succinctly puts it, bona fide applicants for the land had not been disposed(p) the opportunity they had been promised to bid for a rental or for possession of the land13. Wass heightslights the two senior genteel servants identified by the inquiry who did attempt to cover their own tracks once the facts were apparentThe one mistake on which everyone seized was the impropriety of the two principal officials who, realising that applicants to rent or buy the land had not been given the opportunities they had been led to expect, sought to appear retrospectively to have considered their case. This was obviously wrong and would have been a suitable undetermined for a mild criticism by the Ombudsman, if he had existed at the time and had the case been referred to him. But it is sanely clear from the papers that, unconstipated if the applicants cases had been considered, the outcome, viz. a decision to continue to farm the unit as a single unit by a farmer of proved ability, would have been the same.14The end forget was that the Minister of Agriculture, Sir Thomas Dugdale, resigned and the two courteous serv ants were locomote to other duties15. The constitutional legacy of Crichel Down was that it is now cited as the last example of a ministers acceptance of right for all the acts of his department16. In the subsequent debate in the domicile of Commons Sir David Maxwells Fyfe, the thusly theatre Secretary, sought to clarify four situations in which a Minister must secondaryly accept right to varying degrees for the actions or inactions of his civic servants ranging from where an explicit pronounce is given to where action is taken by a polished servant of which the Minister disapproves and has no previous knowledge17. This continuum of indebtedness did not contain any mention of endurance and the topic remains accustomed to circumstances in that location is no duty on a minister to resign when maladministration has occurred within his or her department18. The key factors which influence a resignation are for the most part political a fact which is corroborated by Professor Finer19 and Bradley & Ewings seminal work on constitutional law20.Part 2 Arms to IraqBy the convention supposedly crystalise in the aftermath of the Crichel Down affair the Ministers creditworthy for exporting munition to Iraq would have had to have resigned in the wake of the Scott Report into the affair in 199621. finally there were no resignations despite a close vote in the Commons during the debate on the report. The conclusions of the report were, however, devastating in finding that there were numerous failings by ministers to keep Parliament appraised of their arms exporting policy and, fundamentally, they had misled Parliament, albeit not intentionally22. Instead the ministers convolute managed to slip into what Margaret Liu has called an accountability gap which exploits the definitions given to responsibility and accountability esteemively23. As Liu explainsA minister is accountable to Parliament for what had occurred in his department without that implying person al consign on the part of a minister if things had gone wrong. By contrast, a minister is said to be responsible for broad policy, and the issues that he/she has been personally involved, not for all department affairs. In other words, the minister is not responsible for what is done by the civil service in the Next Steps direction where he has delegated the accountability for administration from parent departments.24This relatively new artificial distinction allows ministers to escape responsibility for actions in their department carried out by civil servants and ultimately leads, as Liu rightly observes, to potential areas of government for which no one is responsible to Parliament, even though a minister remains accountable25. then despite all of the furore created by the report the ministers were ultimately able to hang onto their jobs and there was to be no supreme sacrifice a la Sir Thomas Dugdale in the Crichel Down affair. This distinction appears to have fuelled the pr actice of misleading Parliament and being creative with the truth to avoid liability in respect of departmental maladministration. As Liu points out individual ministerial responsibility essentially involves the private conduct of a minister, the ministers conduct of his/her department and vicarious acts of civil servants26. Personal conduct seems to be the exception with many ministers resigning because it was impossible to conduct their duties in the media glare27 but as Bradley & Ewing note there have been very few resignations by ministers taking vicarious responsibility for the errors of civil servants in their departments28. The level of culpability was high in the Arms to Iraq case and the fact that no minister lost their jobs is reflective of modern political times where no minister resigns unless the matter is exceptionally serious or private conduct is preventing them doing their jobs. As Longley & Lewis concludeIf the minister is indeed responsible for systems, then he is responsible for their tribulation either outright or through the identification of those who are. If this is not the case, then plainly ministerial responsibility is a myth. slowly the effectiveness of the convention has been erodedScott may have been successfully defused in the party-political arena, but if his report is leftfield to gather dust when it is an indictment of the deep-seated failure of parliamentary government, then the fabled British system will deserve all the disapprobation which it is restrain to receive.29ConclusionIn conclusion Herbert Morrisons rumor was inaccurate even back in the political climate in which it was created a time when a minister would supposedly fall for the actions of any civil servant and would do the right thing by standing down30. As Professor Finer justifiably notes, the cases which precede the Crichel Down affair do not even lend substance to the convention and the principle in fact relies upon factors such as the whim of the Prime Minister and the will of the minister concerned rather than an overriding sense of accepting responsibility for the actions of others31. Applied to the modern political climate the statement is wildly inaccurate with various commentators rightly alleging that it is a myth in the British constitution32. The Scott Report demonstrates the lissomeness of the principle well and the artificial distinctions between responsibility and accountability, inextricably linked, serve only to yet consign the principle to the dustbin of history give up in the most serious of cases. Now creativeness is used in giving answers to Parliament and all responsibility is to be evaded until the eleventh hour. This is, as historied in the introduction, a reflection of the growth of the apparatus of the state and the unelected power of ministers. Professor Finers four categories are more realistic even in 2012There are four categories of deserted Ministers the fortunate, the less fortunate, the unfortun ate, and the plain unlucky. After sinning, the first go to other Ministries the second to Another Place the third base just go. Of the fourth there are but twenty examples in a century33Bibliography JournalsFiner, E.S. (1956) The individualistic Responsibility of Ministers Public Administration 377Liu, Margaret L (2002) Ministerial Responsibility and Constitutional law of nature Coventry Law 7(2) pp25-37 at p.29Longley, D & Lewis, Norman (1996) Ministerial Responsibility The Next Steps Public Law declivity pp490-507Wass, Douglas (1988) The Mystery of Crichel Down Public Law downslope pp473 475BooksBradey, AW & Ewing, KD (2007) Constitutional & Administrative Law Pearson worldwideTomkins, hug drug (1998) The Constitution After Scott Government Unwrapped Oxford University count OxfordTurpin, Colin (1994) Ministerial Responsibility Myth or ingenuousness? in J. Jowell and D. Oliver (eds.), The Changing Constitution, (3rd ed), pp. 114-115