Next Steps and Parliamentary Scrutiny

  • Barry Winetrobe
Chapter

Abstract

The Next Steps Initiative has potentially profound implications for the role and function of parliamentary accountability. The scale of the changes made by the Initiative in the structure and operation of central government functions makes it a more fundamental reform of the civil service than any since the War. It can be suggested that Parliament (which for the purposes of this chapter will mean the House of Commons) has developed its methods of scrutiny of the executive, up to and including the select committee reforms of 1979, in an era of reasonably clear ministerial control (direct or otherwise) over central administration and activities, through departments, ‘quangos’, nationalised industries and so on. The traditional ideas of parliamentary accountability, and even the application of apparent analogies with nationalised industries, may not be appropriate for the brave new world of the executive agency system as conceived in the Initiative.

Keywords

Chief Executive Efficiency Unit National Audit Select Committee Step Agency 
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Copyright information

© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 1995

Authors and Affiliations

  • Barry Winetrobe

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