Introduction

Résumé fourni par la source

Every day at St. Andrew’s House in Edinburgh and at Dover House in Whitehall, bundles of letters are delivered addressed to the Secretary of State for Scotland, as well as to his Scottish ministerial colleagues and the Scottish departments. The only feature that these letters have in common is that they all deal with some aspect of Scottish life, and their number and variety are a fair indication of the extent to which the Secretary of State is popularly regarded as the Minister responsible for anything that happens in Scotland. The identity of the Secretary of State with his departments is perhaps not yet fully understood, although it has been a constitutional fact since 1939. There is still prevalent in Scotland a vague belief that the departments can act on their own authority and make decisions against which there is an appeal to the Secretary of State.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.