[HPforGrownups] Re: British constitution

[Lindsay Stirton]

No: HPFGUIDX 20468

Robert Carnegie wrote:

 As pointed out, the Muggle prime
> minister knows that there's a Ministry of Magic, but he may
> not be sure just where it is.  I presume that Cornelius Fudge
> doesn't attend the government's regular meetings with the
> prime minister and with the queen using an Invisibility Cloak,
> but who knows?

In terms of the British Constitution, there are (by constitutional
convention) up to 70 Ministers, all of whom may never in practice meet
together collectively. It is the Cabinet, the group of (by constitutional
convention limited to 22) most senior Ministers and Secretaries of State,
collectively known as Cabinet Ministers, that meet regularly, weekly in
fact. 

I suspect that the Minister of Magic falls in the former category, i.e. he
is one of up to 70 Ministers of the Crown, but not a member of the Cabinet,
and so would not have to attend regular meetings under an invisibility
cloak.

As implied by Carnegie, the famously "unwritten" British constitution--not
quite true, the Treaty of Union 1707, as well as the European Communities
Act 1972 and the Treaty of Rome are all written documents inter alia
comprising the British Constitution--is fairly malleable and the structure
of government is under constant change. One recent change involves the
creation of stand-alone regulatory agencies, which are non-ministerial
government departments headed by a Director-General, and as such are
quasi-independent of Ministries. Another change involves the creation of
Next Steps agencies, through which core civil service functions, primarily
involving service delivery rather than policy functions, are being hived off
into semi-autonomous Executive Agencies, headed by an Agency Chief
Executive. 

If similar reforms are extended to the Ministry of Magic, we should expect
bureaucracies in these kind of areas to be subject to agencification in the
coming books: the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical
Creatures will become OFMAC,(a contraction of Office of Magical Creatures);
the Department for the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts will similarly be
transformed into OFMMART. The Department of Magical Games and Sports to
become the Magical Games and Sports Agency. All these agencies would then be
responsible for the fulfilment of policies set at the level of the Ministry
of Magic. The Department of International Magical Co-operation, which serves
a policy-making rather than a service-delivery or regulatory function will
presumably retain its present form.

All this should please poor Arthur Weasley: as Director General of OFMAC,
his position would fall outside the strict rules concerning the terms and
conditions for the employment of civil servants. Perhaps Ron won't have to
wear hand-me-downs much longer.

Lindsay Stirton - a jurist and political scientist who would like to teach a
much-needed course called Regulation of Magic at Hogwarts.