2 |
Decision-making within government
143.
DOP was
chaired by the Prime Minister, and its membership included
the
Chancellor
of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and
the
International
Development Secretary. The CDS attended as required.
The
Guide to
Minute Taking produced by
the Cabinet Office in June 2001 said that the
first
purpose of a minute was to set out the conclusions reached so that
those who have to
take action
know precisely what to do; the second purpose was to “give the
reasons why
the
conclusions were reached”.
The
Guide
said:
“A good
minute of a meeting will be:
i. brief
but intelligible;
ii.
self-contained;
iii. in the
main, impersonal; and
iv. to the
full extent that the discussion allows, decisive.”90
The
Guide
made clear
that a minute was “not a substitute for a verbatim record”
and
should not
reproduce points made by every speaker. Instead they should be
grouped into
paragraphs
which develop the argument.
Points
should be attributed to an individual when “a specifically
departmental view has
been put
forward, or a suggestion has been made to safeguard a departmental
interest”,
or when a
speaker reserves their position or registers dissent. Dissent to
the conclusions
of a
Cabinet meeting should only be recorded if the dissenting Minister
indicates an
intention
to resign.
The
Guide
advised
that when the Chair had summed up a discussion “it is
usually
convenient
to record this as a formal summing up” to record “the sense of the
meeting”
and avoid
lengthy conclusions. A minute should end with conclusions which are
“clear
and precise”.
The
Guide
explained
that conventions govern the formulae used to indicate
different
kinds of
action, which reflected “the constitutional position of Ministers
as individually
responsible
for matters covered by their department while sharing in the
collective
responsibility
of members of the Government”. The formulae also distinguished
the
positions
of the Chair of a Committee and its Secretariat. They
were:
“The
Committee–
1. Approved
[a memorandum].
2. Agreed
[on a course of action].
3. Agreed
to resume their discussion …
4.
Instructed the Secretaries …
5. Invited
the Chancellor of the Exchequer [or the Treasury in the case of
an
Official
Committee] to … (do not say ‘authorised’).
90
Cabinet
Office, Guide to
Minute Taking, June
2001.
289