This student text brings together and discusses different principles and ideas that are used in the description of policy making and administration in Britain. These include Collective Responsibility, Individual Ministerial Responsibility, Arms Lenght Control, Organisation by Function, Judicial Review of Administration. The problem for those advancing these concepts and those receiving them, is that there is a massive gap between theory and practice.
Grant Jordan reassesses the tool kit of terms to help students achieve a more practical understanding of modern British administration.
`. One of the many strenghts of Grant Jordan's honest but deeply pessimistic new book is that it drectly confronts and defends the role being played by academics in criticising contemporary reforms.
His own analysis of "Next Steps", and the increasingly elusive doctrine of ministerial responsibility provides a telling indictment of intellectual confusion, as well as as some pointed and witty aporisms which will adorn essay titles and examination questions for years to come.' - Parliamentary Affairs