The Lambert Report: central roles and responsibilities

There are two aspects to the problem of accountability in government. The first deals with the management of government, the need to reconcile the sometimes conflicting goals of decisive and effective management with managerial accountability. The second is to achieve effective political control over the vast apparatus of the bureaucracy, not only through control by ministers over the making and execution of policy, but through parliamentary scrutiny of the conduct of ministers. The last, a preoccupation of academic and other observers of the process, has resulted in a number of procedural reforms in the House of Commons, notably those of 1969, together with subsequent improvements in the facilities of members. The reforms themselves can now be seen as a mixture of gains and losses. Similarly, the Trudeau reforms in the structure and operation of the cabinet and its committees - with the avowed intent of increasing ministerial control over the bureaucracy - have improved matters, but at immeasurable costs in terms of speed and clarity of decisions, and in the almost insupportable burden on ministers themselves and their deputies, whose available time to devote to their departments has been dangerously eroded.[...