When There Is A Cabinet Reshuffle...

[agchristie]

How does the PM assess suitability? Are skills so easily transferable and what are the good/bad examples anyone has of appointments?

[New Judge]

//How does the PM assess suitability?//

Not very well.

[agchristie]

Haaaa! Very succinct NJ!

Im thinking,wot makes a Defence Sec one day so appropriate for Education the next?

I dont understand the system!

[douglas9401]

There's no system, that's abundantly clear.

Just old pals and hangers-on

[Theland]

!leadership and people and project management skills, and if youre mates with Borismo.

[gulliver1]

Just been watching "Hancocks Half Hour" Time he went

[jim360]

It's clearly not based on specific qualifications, in the sense that it's extremely rare for anyone with an economics background to end up at the Treasury. Based on political considerations mainly.

[agchristie]

Cabinet posts are obviously vital jobs.

Does the selection 'criteria' explain why there are so many competency issues?

Wot makes Hancock a Health 'expert',Williamson an Education one and ao forth

[Old_Geezer]

The same as in private companies. Folk are given jobs until they reach their level of incompetence. But in government they find that after a while they are moved and someone else gets a go.

[woofgang]

You don't need technical knowledge, you need skills. Both my husband and I have gone into management jobs and done well in them with minimal knowledge of what the department did in terms of engineering/nursing/physiotherapy/oil refining.
You do need to be able to pick the basics up quickly but there will be professionals around who can brief, coach and advise. I used to manage clinicians who were much better clinicians than I ever was.

Managers and heads of departments need management skills like change, planning, person management vision....you know the kind of thing and these will depend on what the department needs to do and what it is like in terms of efficiency, safety, standards, delivering its objectives and so on.

[Tilly2]

I don't think suitability matters. The civil servants are the ones who advise the Minister what they should/shouldn't do.

[Old_Geezer]

It should work both ways. The elected politician should be telling the civil servants what direction the public voted them in to achieve. No one voted for the civil servants. They are their for advice and then achieving the political aims of the government minister.

[agchristie]

Thanx folks

When summat goes badly wrong who shud be accountable?

The advisers who gave the advice? The minister for taking the advice? Or the PM?

I kno,I dont get politics v well!

[woofgang]

accountable...it depends on what went wrong. Officially there is a level at which the head of department has autonomy and if something goes wrong at that level, then they carry the can. If its a decision taken by the PM and its was known to be his decision, although based on advice from a minister, then he carries the can. As JvT Chris Whitty et al. keep saying they give advice based on what they factually know and then its up to the ministers, the cabinet and the PM to decide what to do. More informally of course an advisor whose advice turns out to be consistently wrong won't last long in the job, ditto a cabinet member or head of department.

[agchristie]

Thanx for takin time to explain woof :-)

[woofgang]

PS anybody remember the NHS woman who used to be at briefings and turn up in nurses uniform? She was doing pretty well until she came on when the first group of NHS clinical staff died and she talked about (and named) "my nurses" and didn't mention the doctor and support staff (nursing assistants) whose deaths had been announced at the same time. Sis and I (both retired Occupational Therapists) looked at each other and went "oh BIG mistake" and she vanished..... one thoughtless comment and that was that.....mind you I always think that thoughtless comments tell you a lot about a person.

[woofgang]

ag you are welcome. it works the same as any other company works.

[Canary42]

https://ibb.co/QHHf5jf

[tonyav]

I work in the steel industry and a couple of years ago ( at a place I was working at the time ) we had a new operations manager. He was from the concrete industry, he lasted 6 months c'us he was rubbish in the steel industry, yet if he was a government minister they would have just moved him to another dept !

[woofgang]

tony he was a rubbish manager, not because he didn't know anything about steel but because he didn't bother to learn what he needed to know and to get himself excellent advisors for the rest.
Ministers get reshuffled but of course as MP's are voted into parliament, they can't be chucked out, just moved to the back benches.

[tonyav]

Ministers get reshuffled but of course as MP's are voted into parliament, they can't be chucked out, just moved to the back benches.

I know, not very often ( chucked back ) happens though.