Subjects:

Constitutional and Administrative Law

Contents:

1. The executive in the constitution

I Introduction

II Why is the executive important?

III Why is the executive neglected?

IV Positive constitutional theory

V The executive in a resource-based theory of the constitution

2. The executive in constitutional law

I Introduction

II The Crown

III The ministerial department

IV Hollowing out the department

V The cabinet and ministry

VI Conclusion

3. The civil service

I Introduction

II The legal basis of control

III The organisation of control

IV Recruitment

V Conduct and discipline

VI Conclusions

4. The financial resources of the government: institutions

I Introduction: the constitutional dimension

II The constitutional structure

III The institutions of the executive

5. The financial resources of government: allocation and appropriation

I Introduction: a plurality of systems

II The Public Expenditure Survey system

III The Supply system

IV Resource accounting and budgeting

6. The financial resources of government: monitoring and control

I In general: criteria, constraints, concepts

II Treasury authorisations and delegations

III Cash control

IV Control and sanctions

7. The organisation of the legal function in government

I Introduction

II The development of the structure for government legal work

III The current structure of legal services

IV The Law Officers: history and status

8. Legislation

I Introduction

II Machinery and purposes

III The impact of Europe

IV Burdens on Business

V Conclusions

9. Litigation and legal advice: co-ordination and control

I The Law Officers, criminal prosecutions, and civil litigation

II The Law Officers as the governments chief legal advisers

III Cabinet Office co-ordination in legal matters

IV Co-ordination within the framework of the Government Legal Service

10. Executive legality: constitutional background and current issues

I Legality: pluralism and centralisation

II Constitutional roots of our present system

III The changing context

IV Change within the executive

11. Better government: charter standards, open government and good administration

I Introduction

II The Citizens Charter and Service First

III Access to official information

IV External controls on standards of administration

V Conclusion

12. Conclusions: internal control in a plural executive

I Introduction

II Trends in internal control

III Internal control and external controls

IV The constitutional significance of internal control

Bibliography

The Executive in the Constitution: Structure, Autonomy, and Internal Control is the first constitutional and legal analysis of the inner workings of the executive for many years. It aims to provoke a reappraisal, by constitutional lawyers, of the place of the executive within the constitution, by exploring an area hitherto largely neglected in constitutional law: the legal foundations of the powers and structure of the executive, and the mechanisms through which the centre of the executive seeks to control the actions of departments.

The authors, both pre-eminent in the field off constitutional law, show that the machinery of executive co-ordination and control is no less crucial a dimension of the constitutional order than the external machinery of democratic and legal control. These external parliamentary and judicial controls depend for their effectiveness on the executive's ability to control itself. The plural structure of the executive, however, makes the co-ordination and control of its component parts a highly problematical pursuit. Against the background of an analysis of the executive's legal structure, the book examines in detail the controls governing departmental access to staffing, financial, and legal resources, analysing the relationship between these internal controls and the external machinery of democratic and legal control, and showing how the machinery of internal control has been shaped by the structure of the executive branch.

The organization of the executive and the way it controls the actions of its departments has changed significantly in recent year. This book explores the impact of the machinery if executive co-ordination and control of the ambitious public service reform project which has been pursued by successive governments over the last twenty years, as well as of changes in the wider constitutional framework, including those stemming from the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union and the growth of judicial review. It shows how public service reforms, judicial review, and European law are changing not just the inner life of the executive government but its place in the constitution as well.