Cabinet Office

   The Cabinet has a Secretariat of between thirty and forty senior civil servants whose job is to timetable meetings, prepare agendas and documents, and draft and circulate minutes. The Secretariat is so important that its head is the country’s top civil servant, the Cabinet Secretary, who is in daily contact with the Prime Minister and Cabinet members. It is assisted by a Cabinet Office of some 1,500 civil servants who prepare the work for committees and follow up their decisions. The term Cabinet Office is now generally used to cover the whole machinery that services Ten Downing Street, the Cabinet and the Departments, and the word ‘secretariat’ rarely features. The main tasks of the Cabinet Office are: to support the Prime Minister as leader of the government; to support the Cabinet in its transaction of business; to lead and support the reform and delivery programme; and to coordinate security and intelligence. From an early stage as Prime Minister, Tony Blair and his team were keen to see a ‘dynamic centre’. This involved more power for the Prime Minister’s Office which works closely with the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury to carry through the Governmental agenda.