About these notes. This is the sub-topic lookup version. For the narrative walk-through with the Great Offices and the three-models figures, use the Walk-through. For active recall, use the MCQ Quiz. For every Cabinet post in detail, use the role cards. The cards below open one at a time and cover what the Cabinet is and does, the Great Offices of State, the cabinet-versus-prime-ministerial debate, collective responsibility, and the exam method.
Likely exam angles. The 30-mark question lands on whether the UK has prime-ministerial rather than cabinet government, whether the PM is too powerful within the executive, or whether collective responsibility still binds the Cabinet. Each one is covered in the cards below.
The Cabinet is the senior decision-making committee of the UK government - the Prime Minister and around twenty senior ministers who run the main departments. It meets weekly, takes the major collective decisions of government, settles disputes between departments, and presents a single agreed line to Parliament and the public. Cabinet committees do much of the detailed work, coordinated through the Cabinet Office.
Convention treats four posts as the most senior beneath the Prime Minister.
| Office | Department | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Prime Minister | No 10 + Cabinet Office | Head of government; chairs Cabinet; patronage; royal prerogative powers. A role created by convention. |
| Chancellor of the Exchequer | HM Treasury | Tax and spending; the Budget; control of every department's budget. The second-most-powerful role; common route to the premiership. |
| Foreign Secretary | FCDO | Foreign policy, diplomacy, treaties, overseas development. The post most often eclipsed by the PM. |
| Home Secretary | Home Office | Policing in England and Wales, immigration and asylum, security and counter-terrorism. The toughest brief in Cabinet. |
The traditional model: the PM is first among equals (primus inter pares) - powerful, but one voice among the senior figures who take the major decisions together. The Cabinet is a genuine collective body that debates policy, settles disputes and can constrain the PM.
The PM dominates the executive. The tools are patronage (every minister owes their job to the PM), control of the agenda, and the Cabinet Office machinery. Blair is the textbook case - the "sofa government" criticism held that he marginalised the full Cabinet, taking decisions in small informal groups and using No 10 to set the line. On this view the Cabinet ratifies rather than decides.
The strongest version: the PM behaves like a directly elected head of state, drawing authority from a personal public mandate rather than the party or the Cabinet. Foley's spatial leadership describes a PM who stands apart from the government, presenting themselves as its embodiment. Thatcher and Blair are the cases cited.
The counter to the dominant-PM models is that prime-ministerial power is conditional, not fixed. It depends on a Commons majority, party support and personal authority - and when those fail, the Cabinet reasserts itself.
The Cabinet is held together by collective ministerial responsibility (CMR): the convention that every cabinet minister must publicly support government policy or resign. One voice, one team. Its strength is a direct measure of how much real cabinet government there is.