The State and its role - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 140

9.2 The nature of 'the State'
The State has been defined as 'the sum of all the institutions which possess legitimate
authority to exercise public power' (Dearlove and Saunders 2000 p. 246). The most
politically visible of these institutions is (Central) Government - the collection of
Ministers appointed by the Prime Minister (officially by the Crown) from the majority
party in the House of Commons. Each Minister directs and is accountable to Parliament
for specific aspects of administration undertaken in the various Departments of State.
The most senior Ministers - mainly those who head the individual Government
departments - collectively form the Cabinet. It is in the Cabinet, or more commonly
in the large number of Cabinet sub-committees set up to deal with individual subjects,
that overall Government policy is formally decided on.
The day-to-day business of executing Government responsibilities, advising
Ministers and carrying out their decisions, is conducted by the Civil Service. This is
staffed by career administrators and specialist professionals who are unelected and,
in a formal sense, politically neutral. The continuity of the Civil Service from one
Government to another (even when it changes political colour) is a very important
influence on the evolution of policy - a force for stability or an impediment to change
depending on one's point of view.
As was very acutely shown in the TV series 'Yes Minister' the greater knowledge
and experience of senior civil servants in a particular field can mean that in practice
it is they and not the Ministers who direct the workings of government departments
and lead decision-making, subject of course to the niceties of constitutional etiquette.
To counter this a system of 'political advisers' - overtly party political appointment of
experts - has grown up in order to strengthen Ministers' hands. Increasingly too the
Prime Minister's own Policy Unit exerts a controlling influence on the policies and
priorities pursued in individual departments.
Much State activity which is not concerned with national policy-making is
devolved in some way - to executive agencies (such as the Highways Agency), to non-
governmental public bodies (such as the Rail Regulator), or to regional assemblies and
local government. (These are discussed further as part of the 'institutional framework'
in the following chapter.)
The work of all these bodies carries the authority of the 'Crown in Parliament' and
is backed by the State enforcement agencies - the police, the judiciary and the armed
forces. This gives them the unique status of having the backing of legitimate coercive
force which, if resisted, can be punished by fines or imprisonment. However this force
only comes into play occasionally and in rather extreme circumstances. The power
which derives from its potential use is greater, particularly - in the case of personal
behaviour - in the way it reinforces social norms.
The ordinary person is likely to have only a vague idea of what 'the State' consists
of and what it actually does. This uncertainty is probably best encapsulated in the all-
purpose 'they' which is commonly used to refer to any body which exerts a controlling
influence over some aspect of their lives. People are likely to remark that 'they' have
put up bus fares again, or that 'they' are planning to build a bypass without pausing to
reflect on which particular body is responsible - even whether it is a public or a private
one.
In fact the public/private distinction is of fundamental importance because it is
associated with quite different regimes of accountability which impact on the position
of the individual. In relation to private companies this position is normally as a