Cabinet Office written statement – made at on 26 January 2006.
Jim Murphy
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Cabinet Office)
The Cabinet Secretary and the First Civil Service Commissioner will tomorrow launch consultation on a new Civil Service Code. The Civil Service Code, which was introduced in 1996, sets out the duties and responsibilities of civil servants. Copies are available in the Library of the House.
The new Code is the result of work between the Government and the Civil Service Commissioners to ensure that the Code is relevant and accessible to all civil servants. The Code sets out the core values of the Civil Service and the standards of behaviour expected of all civil servants in their dealings with Ministers, the public, other organisations the Civil Service works with and its many customers.
In publishing the new Code for consultation, the Government wish to place on record its appreciation to the former First Civil Service Commissioner, Baroness Usha Prashar, for her contribution in taking forward work on the new Code.
Comments are invited on the new Code. The consultation period will run until
Copies of the new Code will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
See "placed in the library".
