The doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility is a convention practiced in governments using the Westminster system–that a minister of the executive bears the ultimate responsibility for the actions of his ministry and department.
It is held that the accountable minister must take blame and ultimately resign and the rest of the executive is not held to be answerable for that minister's failure.
If there are instances of corruption, acts of misbehaviour or any other sort of impropriety that is found to have occurred under the minister's watch, they are liable and responsible.
It has been an essential convention and principle warranting that elected and non-elected officials who serve in government are answerable for government's decisions, and it also forces and motivates ministers to closely scrutinise all activities of their ministries.
In this latest scenario, the utterances from the former sport minister Anil Roberts are totally inconceivable and incomprehensible.
Roberts fully concurred with this principle of individual ministerial responsibility when it involved his erstwhile colleague Herbert Volney and the section 34 brouhaha. But... "what is good for the goose is certainly not good for the gander."
The doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility entails four precepts: inform and explain, apologise, take action and resign.
The revelations, as outlined by the audit report, are a source of serious concern and really should place the doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility to the front, given what has unfolded with the Life Sport Programme.
There are many examples to cite where the doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility has been used:
�2 Thomas Lionel Dugdale, First Baron Crathorne, known as Sir Thomas Dugdale, First Baronet, from 1945 to 1959, was a British Conservative Party politician.
A government minister, he resigned over the Crichel Down Affair, often quoted as a classic example of the convention of individual ministerial responsibility. In the history of modern parliament, the Crichel Down affair has been described as a "political bombshell." The public inquiry into the Crichel Down events revealed a catalogue of ineptitude and maladministration and resulted directly in the resignation of the Secretary of State for Agriculture (Sir Thomas Dugdale), then a senior cabinet position, and was the first case of ministerial resignation since 1917.
Whilst the underlying case was, in the scale of things, trivial, involving the transfer of some 700 acres of mediocre agricultural land in Dorset, the ramifications for subsequent government procedure were enormous, and it is regarded as one of the key events leading to the creation of the post of Ombudsman. Crichel Down was probably the first instance of close and very public scrutiny being directed at a minister of the Crown in the execution of his duties.
�2 Secretary of State for War/Member of the Privy Council/Member of Government John Profumo, under Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, resigned following the scandalous Profumo affair. He had served his party for 25 years.
�2 Reginald Maulding resigned as Home Secretary in 1972 because of the revealations of the business practices and acquaintances of the architect John Poulson. He said he had no other option but to resign and he wrote his letter of resignation to the Prime Minister and asked that it be read out in the Lower House of Parliament–The House of Commons.
�2 In December 1998, Peter Mandelson, then the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, resigned. Mandelson stated in his resignation letter: "I accept that the existence of the loan should have been made known to my Permanent Secretary so as to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest."
Mr Roberts–the nation thanks you for doing the honourable thing.
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Carlyle Hinkson
Diego Martin
(Editor's note: Mandelson had bought a home in Notting Hill in 1996 with the assistance of an interest-free loan of �373,000 from Geoffrey Robinson, a millionaire Labour MP who was also in the government and subject to an inquiry into his business dealings by Mandelson's department. Mandelson contended that he had deliberately not taken part in any decisions relating to Robinson. However, he had not declared the loan in the Register of Members' Interests, and resigned on 23 December 1998. Source: Wikipedia)