The Cabinet Manual is a government document in the United Kingdom which sets out the main laws, rules and conventions affecting the conduct and operation of the Government of the United Kingdom. It was written by the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

, led by Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell, and was first published by the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...

on 14 December 2010. The manual gives an overview of the UK's system of government, reflecting the importance of Parliament, Cabinet government and the democratic nature of the UK's constitutional arrangements by explaining the powers of the Executive,

Sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...

, Parliament, international institutions (most notably the European Union), the Crown Dependencies,

British Overseas Territories The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remna ...

and the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The Manual was written as a guide for members of Cabinet, other ministers and

civil servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

in the execution of government business, but also serves to consolidate many of the previously unwritten constitutional conventions through which the British government operates. The writing of the manual was originally initiated by Gordon Brown as part of his broader plan to establish a written constitution for the UK. However, in 2011 the House of Lords Constitution Committee stated that the document was "not the first step to a written constitution" as it only describes the existing rules and does not "set existing practice in stone". The manual does not need to be formally approved by Parliament and can be modified at any time by the Cabinet Secretary.

History

The United Kingdom has no single constitutional document; instead, much of the British constitution is embodied in documents, within

statute A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...

s, court judgments, works of authority and treaties, which is sometimes described as an

uncodified In law, codification is the process of collecting and restating the law of a jurisdiction in certain areas, usually by subject, forming a legal code, i.e. a codex (book) of law. Codification is one of the Civil law (legal system)#Codification, d ...

or "unwritten" constitution. The UK constitution also has several unwritten sources in the form of constitutional conventions. In February 2010 during a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that he had asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to "consolidate the existing unwritten, piecemeal conventions that govern much of the way central government operates under our existing constitution into a single written document". Sir Gus and his team in the

travelled to New Zealand, which uses the Westminster system of government and also lacks a codified constitution. Using the ''

New Zealand Cabinet Manual The ''Cabinet Manual'' (previously the ''Cabinet Office Manual'' until 2001) is a government document in New Zealand which outlines the main laws, rules and constitutional conventions affecting the operation of the New Zealand Government. It has ...

'' as precedent, the Cabinet Office published a draft Cabinet Manual for the UK in December 2010 which was scrutinised by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the

Public Administration Select Committee The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee, formerly the Public Administration Select Committee, is a select committee appointed by the British House of Commons to examine the reports of the Parliamentary and Health S ...

. Following recommendations by the Parliamentary Committees, a finalised version was published in October 2011 with

foreword A foreword is a (usually short) piece of writing, sometimes placed at the beginning of a book or other piece of literature. Typically written by someone other than the primary author of the work, it often tells of some interaction between the ...

s by

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

and Sir Gus O'Donnell.

External links

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References

{{Reflist Cabinet Office (United Kingdom) Constitution of the United Kingdom Government of the United Kingdom Politics of the United Kingdom

History

See also

External links

References