Download or read book Goats and tsars written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-11 with total page 90 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report from the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) concludes that the practice of appointing ministers from outside Parliament via the House of Lords should be exceptional and subject to more checks and balances. Introducing a wider range of experience into ministerial teams can sometimes make government more effective, but government could also achieve this by making greater use of the range of talent on their own backbenches. The Committee argues for more scrutiny of outside appointments when they are made. The Prime Minister would be required to explain to the House of Commons why an appointment had been made, under what terms and what was expected of the minister during their time in government. The prospective appointee could be required to attend a pre-appointment select committee hearing. PASC identifies a strong argument of principle that ministers in an unelected House of Lords should be accountable to all Members of the House of Commons. People who have been appointed to the Lords to be ministers should not automatically receive a title and place in the legislature for life. It may be preferable to have a limited number of ministers who are members of neither House but accountable to both. The Committee also examined the role of so-called 'tsars'. There should be much more transparency about such appointments, with greater clarity about their roles and responsibilities and a public statement of what they have achieved in their posts.

Download or read book House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee Trith to Power How Civil Service Reforem Can Succeed HC 74 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-09-06 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) has concluded a year-long inquiry into the future of the Civil Service with only one recommendation: that Parliament should establish a Joint Committee of both Houses to sit as a Commission on the future of the Civil Service. It should be constituted within the next few months and report before the end of the Parliament with a comprehensive change programme for Whitehall with a timetable to be implemented over the lifetime of the next Parliament. The Report considers the increased tensions between ministers and officials which have become widely reported, and places the problems in Whitehall in a wider context of a Civil Service built on the Northcote-Trevelyan settlement established in 1853 and the Haldane principles of ministerial accountability set out in 1919. The government's Civil Service Reform Plan lacks strategic coherence and clear leadership from a united team of ministers and officials. The Northcote-Trevelyan Civil Service remains the most effective way of supporting the democratically elected Government and future administrations in the UK. Divided leadership and confused accountabilities in Whitehall have led to problems: a low level of engagement amongst civil servants in some departments and agencies, and a general lack of trust and openness; the Civil Service exhibits the key characteristics of a failing organisation with the leadership are in denial about the scale of the challenge they face. There is a persistent lack of key skills and capabilities across Whitehall and an unacceptably high level of churn of lead officials, which is incompatible with good government.

Download or read book Communicating statistics written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-05-29 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Administration Select Committee recommends that departmental press officers and government statistics staff should work together much more closely to ensure that press releases give an accurate and meaningful picture of the truth behind the figures. Government statistics press releases do not always give a true and fair picture of the story behind the statistics, sometimes going too far to create a newsworthy headline. And the Committee says the ways that statistics are presented can be a challenge even for expert users. The lay user is left confused and disengaged. The Office for National Statistics website makes figures hard to find and statistics are often presented in a confusing way, for example, in formats which are not easily understandable. Other recommendations include: the UK Statistics Authority should work proactively to bring together and clearly present key statistics, from various sources, around common themes or events, such as elections and referendums, as well as broader topics such as the labour market and economic trends; the ONS website must be improved; the Statistics Authority should find more creative ways of communicating statistics, for example, through interactive guides; publication of more raw data in machine-readable format for experts who want the full results, not just the edited highlights presented in releases for a mass audience; government statisticians produce thousands of pieces of data on demand, known as 'ad hoc statistics' and these should be published proactively, rather than simply in reaction to requests.

Download or read book Accountability to the House of Commons of secretaries of state in the House of Lords written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Procedure Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-22 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accountability to the House of Commons of secretaries of state in the House of Lords : Third report of session 2009-10, report, together with formal minutes and written Evidence

Download or read book Doing Politics written by Tony Wright and published by Biteback Publishing. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A dose of sense from the voice of parliamentary reason.Throughout the expenses scandal and the lobbying scandal and all the other storms which have buffeted Parliament, Dr Tony Wright is the one MP who has consistently provided a measured, sane and sensible reaction to events. As Chair of the influential Public Administration Committee he has risen above party and partisan politics to offer a sometimes lone voice of reason. His new book considers the wider implications of the various political ructions and the public reaction to them, and argues that if we want to defend politics, then we also have to defend politicians: the class of people is intrinsic to the activity. Somebody has to do the messy business of accommodating conflicting demands and interests, choosing between competing options, negotiating unwelcome trade-offs, and taking responsibility for decisions that often represent the least worst course of action. That somebody is politicians. They give voice to our hopes, but they also, inevitably, feed our disappointments, even if their name is Obama. From one of our most erudite, intellectually rigorous yet sensible politicians, Doing Politics is just the book the nation needs.

Download or read book Outside and insiders written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Outside and Insiders : External appointments to the Senior Civil Service, further report, with the Governments response to the Committees seventh report of session 2009-10, twelfth report of session 2009-10, report and appendix, together with formal Min

Download or read book Understanding the Private Public Divide written by Avner Offer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Markets are taken as the norm in economics and in much of political and media discourse. But if markets are superior why does the public sector remain so large? Avner Offer provides a distinctive new account of the effective temporal limits on private, public, and social activity. Understanding the Private–Public Divide accounts for the division of labour between business and the public sector, how it changes over time, where the boundaries ought to run, and the harm that follows if they are violated. He explains how finance forces markets to focus on short-term objectives and why business requires special privileges in return for long-term commitment. He shows how a private sector policy bias leads to inequality, insecurity, and corruption. Integrity used to be the norm and it can be achieved again. Only governments can manage uncertainty in the long-term interests of society, as shown by the challenge of climate change.

Download or read book Public engagement in policy making written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-06-03 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report the Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) calls for a "wiki" approach to policy-making, where public opinion, ideas and contributions are sought and welcome at any and all stages of the policy cycle. The Government should be able to demonstrate that it has adopted this approach alongside ministerial leadership and responsibility for policy and its outcomes. All policy making carries risks: a lack of appetite for participation, disappointment arising from unrealistic expectations and the dominance of vested interests. Government must frankly assess and address these risks in relation to open policy making. Digital technology has a significant role to play in opening up policy-making. Government could and should go further and embrace radical and innovative approaches, making use of existing platforms and technologies, such as Twitter. The success and impact of public engagement in policy-making must be effectively measured. Government must able to demonstrate value for money and improved outcomes with this new approach, particularly in a time of austerity. The Committee says proposals for both "open" and "contestable" policy-making demonstrate that Government recognises the value of public opinion in helping to identify problems and develop solutions. However, for open policy-making to work, it must be a genuine departure from more traditional forms of policy-making, where public engagement has usually only occurred after the Government has already determined a course of action. Care must be taken to ensure that open policy-making processes are not dominated by vested interests or 'the usual suspects' who are aware of policy 'opportunities'.

Download or read book Too Soon to Scrap the Census HC 1090 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-04-17 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the start of this Parliament, the Minister for the Cabinet Office indicated the ten-yearly census should be axed and the 2011 census should be the last. But in this report the Public Administration Select Committee urges the government not to scrap the 2021 census. Good figures on the people in the country are of fundamental importance to the statistical system, policy makers and society more widely, and the ten-yearly census gives detailed information on small areas. This report follows the National Statistician's announcement in March 2014 that she recommends that Government keep the Census in 2021, but that it should be conducted largely online, and that the Government should make much greater use of the data which it already holds in order to improve the accuracy of population estimates. The Committee supports the recommendation from the National Statistician, but urges the Office for National Statistics to do much more to make the best use of the data which the Government already collects, for example through the Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department of Health. The Committee says that the Office for National Statistics' work on the future of the Census has, to date, been limited, and recommends that the Office for National Statistics now sets out a much more ambitious vision for the use of this data to provide rich and valuable population statistics.

Download or read book Too many ministers written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee examines the number of ministers in the United Kingdom Government and calls for substantial reductions in the number of government ministers and in the wider payroll vote in the House of Commons. It also builds on some of the conclusions of their report on Good Government (HC 97, session 2008-09, 8th report (ISBN 9780215532244). There are currently 119 ministers in the United Kingdom Government, in addition to those in the devolved institutions. The Committee is sceptical about claims that this reflects the growing complexity of government, noting that in the years around 1950 the government created the welfare state, undertook major nationalisations and administered the British Empire with only 81 ministers.The Committee concludes that some junior ministerial posts are unnecessary and moreover that an excessive number of posts is harmful to good government, costly and inefficient; even where ministers are unpaid. There is also concern about the size of the 'payroll vote' in the House of Commons, which now comprises nearly 40 per cent of the governing Parliamentary Party.The Committee's key recommendations are: A reduction in the number of ministers of around one third; steps to close the loop-hole whereby unpaid ministers do not count against some statutory limits on the numbers of ministers; halving the number of Parliamentary Private Secretaries by restricting them to one for each Department or Cabinet Ministers and abolishing Parliamentary Assistants to Regional Ministers; and a limit on the total size of the payroll vote in the House of Commons of 15 per cent of its total membership.

Download or read book Understanding Health Policy written by Baggott, Rob and published by Policy Press. This book was released on 2015-10-14 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years the pace of reform in health policy and the NHS has been relentless. But how are policies formed and implemented? This fully updated edition of a bestselling book explores the processes and institutions that make health policy, examining what constitutes health policy, where power lies, and what changes could be made to improve the quality of health policy making. Drawing on original research by the author over many years, and a wide range of secondary sources, the book examines the role of various institutions in the formation and implementation of health policy. Unlike most standard texts, it considers the impact of devolution in the UK and the role of European and international institutions and fills a need for an up-to-date overview of this fast-moving area. It features new case studies to illustrate how policy has evolved and developed in recent years. This new edition has been fully updated to reflect policies under the later years of New Labour and the Coalition government. Although written particularly with the needs of students and tutors in mind, this accessible textbook will also appeal to policy makers and practitioners in the health policy field.

Download or read book Contemporary Prime Ministerial Leadership in Britain and Japan written by Tina Burrett and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-10-21 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyses prime ministerial leadership in Britain and Japan since 1980. Exploring the interplay between personal skill, institutional resources and situational context in explaining the varying power and agency of different British and Japanese leaders, it asks whether the skills, strategies and circumstances needed for effective leadership are converging across liberal democracies. Comparing Britain and Japan reveals leadership trends that might otherwise go unobserved. The book addresses questions important to aspiring politicians as well as scholars, including: What accounts for the short tenure of most Japanese prime ministers? Does comparison with Japan explain the rapid turnover in British prime ministers since 2016? How is the influence of party factions on prime ministerial power evolving in Japan? Are British political parties more factional than commonly acknowledged? And how do changes in media technology affect leadership opportunities and constraints? The book draws on the author’s experience as a political researcher in both the British and Japanese parliaments and on interviews with over 40 politicians and political journalists working in both countries.

Download or read book House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee PASC The Failure of the Cabinet Office to Respond to our Report on the Business Appointment Rules Published July 2012 HC 1156 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014-03-27 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There has been concern in the last few years that former Ministers and Crown Servants have inappropriately used knowledge they gained in Government to seek new employment in other sectors. Over two years ago the Committee launched an inquiry to examine the effectiveness of the Business Appointment Rules in ensuring propriety in the future employment of former Ministers and senior Crown servants; and to consider the potential of the Big Society agenda to increase traffic through the "revolving door" between the public sector and business and the voluntary sector. The report "The Business Appointment Rules" was published on 17 July 2012. Some twenty months later, the Government has not responded to the Report. The Committee has raised this matter both through correspondence with the Rt Hon Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, and by way of Parliamentary Questions. The Committee views the Government failure to respond to a Select Committee Report as unacceptable behaviour and in this instance as obstructive and secretive, both showing a cavalier attitude in its responsibilities towards Parliament and thereby deliberately impeding a cross-party scrutiny of Government policy in this area.

Download or read book HC 110 Who s Accountable Relationships Between Government And Arm s Length Bodies written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Public Administration Select Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2014 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The controversy around the Government's handling of flooding last winter showed that arm's-length Government is confused and opaque. Organisational forms and names are inconsistent. Most public bodies answer to Ministers but some are directly accountable to Parliament. There is no agreement on how many types of body exist. There are overlaps and blurring between categories. Accountability arrangements and reforms so far have been ad hoc. The Government has reviewed non-departmental public bodies, but it should review all forms of arm's-length Government, including executive agencies and non-ministerial departments. The Government should establish a clear taxonomy of public bodies: constitutional bodies, independent public interest bodies, departmental sponsored bodies, and executive agencies. All public bodies should sit in one of the categories, so that it is clear how each is to be governed and sponsored. This is essential in order to clarify who is accountable for what. This would promote understanding of what is expected of relationships and explain the rationale for locating functions in particular organisational forms. Up to date, plain English statements of statuses, roles and relationships are needed even if the underlying arrangements are complicated. This is far from the reality in many cases, particularly in the NHS. With a budget of £95.6 billion NHS England is now by far the largest public body in England and its accountability should not be in any doubt, but it is still evolving. There is insufficient understanding across Government about how arms-length Government should work.

Download or read book Who Governs Britain written by Anthony King and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2015-04-09 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British system has been radically transformed in recent decades, far more than most of us realise. As acclaimed political scientist and bestselling author Anthony King shows, this transformation lies at the heart of British politics today. Imagining - or pretending - that the British political system and Britain's place in the world have not greatly changed, our political leaders consistently promise more than they can perform. Political and economic power is now widely dispersed both inside and outside the UK, but Westminster politicians still talk the language of Attlee and Churchill. How exactly has the British system changed? Where does power now lie? In Who Governs Britain?, King offers the first assessment in many years of Britain's governing arrangements as a whole, providing much needed context for the 2015 general election.

Download or read book Growing Democracy in Japan written by Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Programs Brian Woodall and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-06-19 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kentucky native and national tastemaker Duncan Hines (1880--1959) published his first cookbook, Adventures in Good Cooking, in 1939 at the age of fifty-nine. This best-selling collection featured recipes from select restaurants across the country as well as crowd-pleasing family favorites, and it helped to raise the standard for home cooking in America. Filled with succulent treats, from the Waldorf-Astoria's Chicken Fricassee to the Oeufs a la Russe served at Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans to Mrs. Hines's own Christmas Nut Cake, this book includes classic recipes from top chefs and home cooks alike. Featuring a new introduction by Hines biographer Louis Hatchett and a valuable guide to the art of carving, this classic cookbook serves up a satisfying slice of twentieth-century Americana, direct from the kitchen of one of the nation's most trusted names in food. Now a new generation of cooks can enjoy and share these delectable dishes with family and friends.

Download or read book Sessional Returns written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-09-14 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees