Structure
The ISC is unique inasmuch as it is not a committee of Parliament, but consists of nine parliamentarians appointed by, and reporting directly to, the Prime Minister. In this capacity, it has greater powers than a select committee of Parliament, being able to demand papers from former governments and official advice to ministers, both of which are forbidden to select committees.
The committee has an independent secretariat which was previously provided by the Cabinet Office. In its 2009–10 annual report, the ISC said there was a conflict of interest in being hosted by a department which came under its scrutiny and it has since moved to government offices at 35 Great Smith Street, with an independent web page. It also, from 2009, had a panel of three investigators: a general investigator to undertake specific investigations covering the administration and policy of the agencies, a financial investigator covering expenditure issues, and a legal advisor to provide the committee with independent legal advice. It is not known whether the current committee has continued with these three investigators. From 1999 to 2004, the committee's only investigator was John Morrison, who is a co-author of the only in-depth study of the ISC to date.
Read more about this topic: Intelligence And Security Committee
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“It is difficult even to choose the adjective
For this blank cold, this sadness without cause.
The great structure has become a minor house.
No turban walks across the lessened floors.
The greenhouse never so badly needed paint.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?”
—George Herbert (1593–1633)
“Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.”
—Karl Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835)