Ministerial Responsibility
The convention that ministers must answer to Parliament for their departments' actions, how it is supposed to work, and why it breaks down in practice.
Individual and Collective Responsibility
Ministerial responsibility has two dimensions. Individual ministerial responsibility holds that each minister is accountable to Parliament for the actions of their department. If a serious failure occurs, the minister is expected to answer for it and, in extreme cases, resign. Collective ministerial responsibility holds that all Cabinet members must publicly support government decisions once made, regardless of their private views. Ministers who disagree publicly are expected to resign.
In theory, these conventions create a powerful accountability chain: civil servants answer to ministers, ministers answer to Parliament, and Parliament answers to the electorate. In practice, both conventions have been significantly eroded. Ministerial resignations for departmental failures have become rare. The convention was strong enough in 1982 that Lord Carrington resigned as Foreign Secretary over the Argentine invasion of the Falklands, but by the 2020s ministers routinely survived scandals that would once have forced resignation.