Functions
Prior to 1964, there were five bodies responsible for the armed forces: the Admiralty, the War Office, the Air Ministry, the Ministry of Aviation, and a smaller Ministry of Defence. By Orders-in-Council issued under the Defence (Transfer of Functions) Act 1964, the functions of these bodies were transferred to the Defence Council and the Secretary of State for Defence, who heads a larger Ministry of Defence.
The Secretary of State for Defence, who is a member of the Cabinet, chairs the Defence Council, and is accountable to the Queen and to Parliament for its business. The letters patent constituting the Defence Council vest it with the power of command over Her Majesty's Forces and give it responsibility for their administration, or in the words of the letters patent:
- "...to administer such matters pertaining to Our Naval Military and Air Forces as We through Our Principal Secretary of State for Defence direct them to execute And to have command under Us of all Officers Ratings Soldiers and Airmen of Our Naval Military and Air Forces...".
In practice, the Defence Council is a formal body, and almost all its work is conducted by or on behalf of the three service boards chaired by the Secretary of State which report to the Defence Council, namely the Admiralty Board, the Army Board and the Air Force Board.
Read more about this topic: Defence Council Of The United Kingdom
Famous quotes containing the word functions:
“The mind is a finer body, and resumes its functions of feeding, digesting, absorbing, excluding, and generating, in a new and ethereal element. Here, in the brain, is all the process of alimentation repeated, in the acquiring, comparing, digesting, and assimilating of experience. Here again is the mystery of generation repeated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The English masses are lovable: they are kind, decent, tolerant, practical and not stupid. The tragedy is that there are too many of them, and that they are aimless, having outgrown the servile functions for which they were encouraged to multiply. One day these huge crowds will have to seize power because there will be nothing else for them to do, and yet they neither demand power nor are ready to make use of it; they will learn only to be bored in a new way.”
—Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)
“Let us stop being afraid. Of our own thoughts, our own minds. Of madness, our own or others’. Stop being afraid of the mind itself, its astonishing functions and fandangos, its complications and simplifications, the wonderful operation of its machinery—more wonderful because it is not machinery at all or predictable.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)