IDPM Archived Publications
Public Policy and Management Working Papers
Please note : this working paper is part of a series that has been discontinued and archived .
'An Exocet in a Red Box': Competing Avenues of Accountability in the Sandline Affair
Charles Polidano
Abstract
It is commonly proposed that the accountability gap resulting from ministers' reluctance to accept responsibility for departmental errors in the UK could be closed by giving select committees stronger investigative powers. In the Sandline affair the select committee on foreign affairs sought to take on such a role, notwithstanding that a separate inquiry was already under way.
This paper examines the committee's activities prior to the completion of the inquiry. It concludes that committees are poorly suited to investigate high-profile administrative errors because they are too conditioned by party politics and cannot mount thorough investigations. This role is far better left to independent inquiries (though improvements are needed here too). The primacy of inquiries is likely to become an accepted principle following a parliamentary resolution emerging from the Sandline case.
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