The Role of Ministers
In their day-to-day operations the intelligence and security Agencies operate under the immediate control of their respective Heads. Each of the Heads has a statutory duty to provide annual reports on the work of their Service to the Prime Minister and to their Secretary of State, and brief their respective Secretary of State regularly.
The Prime Minister has overall responsibility for intelligence and security matters. He is accountable to Parliament for matters affecting the Agencies collectively.
The Home Secretary is responsible for the Security Service; the Foreign Secretary for Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ; and the Defence Secretary for the Defence Intelligence Staff.
There is also a Ministerial Committee on the Intelligence Services (CSI ), which is charged with keeping under review policy on the security and intelligence services. The Prime Minister is its chairman and the other members are the Deputy Prime Minister, the Home, Foreign and Defence Secretaries and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Ministers are assisted in the oversight of the Agencies by the Permanent Secretaries' Committee on the Intelligence Services (PSIS), which provides advice on:
- strategic planning assumptions for the work of the Agencies;
- requirements and priorities for intelligence collection and assessment, which are established by the Joint Intelligence Committee;
- the Agencies' programmes and expenditure; and
- other issues related to intelligence.
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