Non-ministerial government department

Non-ministerial departments generally cover matters for which direct political oversight is judged unnecessary or inappropriate. They are headed by senior civil servants. Some fulfil a regulatory or inspection function, and their status is therefore intended to protect them from political interference. Some are headed by a permanent office holder, such as a Permanent Secretaries or Second Permanent Secretaries.

The status of a non-ministerial government department (NMGD) varies considerably from one to another. For example:

• Senior officials in HM Revenue and Customs work closely with Ministers and its key policies are set each year in the Finance Act. However, neither Ministers nor Parliament can interfere in day-to-day taxation decisions.
• A number of NMGDs are highly independent bodies; for example the Charity Commission, Ofsted and economic regulators such as the Office of Fair Trading or the Postal Services Commission. These bodies are "creatures of statute":- that is they implement legislation which they have no power to change. Their political independence is assured by providing that they have the status of Government Departments, but are accountable only to Parliament and the Courts. Their budgets are usually set by the Treasury, not by the department which set them up, and they are often funded by licence fees paid by the industries which they regulate.
• The Food Standards Agency is a special case in that it is an NMGD which was created by merging two large parts of the Departments of Health and what was then the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The aim was to reassure the public (after the BSE/vCJD crisis) that decisions about food safety would in future be taken by an eminent and independent body free of political control. However, Ministers asked the FSA to continue to negotiate on their behalf in Brussels, rather than re-create shadow policy directorates within the original two departments. But because the FSA was designed to take politics out of food safety, it does not seek Ministerial approval for its negotiating position. Indeed, it agrees to European legislation on behalf of the UK, whereupon Ministers find themselves promoting and defending policies (i.e. when implementing the resultant European legislation) which they neither influenced or approved. This is constitutionally deeply unsatisfactory but perhaps pragmatically necessary, and may be a nice example of the flexibility of the UK's unwritten constitution.

A current list of non-ministerial government departments is maintained by the Cabinet Office.