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Students Zone - Self test questions
Use these questions both to test your detailed knowledge of each chapter. Make a note of your answers and then consult the answers page on this website. If you score less than 12 correct answers for any chapter, you probably need to spend more time re-reading and revising its contents.
CHAPTER 8: Departments and Agencies in the Westminster System
1. Since the 1980s civil service departments have:
a) Become more important as a way of organising government work
b) Seen no change in importance
c) Become less important
2. The publication introducing the shift to Agency creation was called:
a) The First Steps
b) The Key Steps
c) The Next Steps
3. Executive Agencies seek to:
a) Separate strategic decision and policy delivery
b) Unite strategic decision and policy delivery
c) Separate strategic decision from policy delivery in some cases, and unite it in others
4. Relations between Agencies are:
a) Almost invariably governed by a written document
b) On some occasions governed by a written document
c) Never governed by a written document
5. The spread of Agencies has seen:
a) An increasing concern with measuring performance through performance indicators
b) No change in the use of performance indicators
c) A decline in the use of performance indicators to measure performance
6. Agencies cover:
a) Only important functions of government
b) A mix of the important and the small scale
c) Only minor technical areas of government
7. Regulatory Agencies were created for:
a) All the privatised industries
b) Some of the privatised industries
c) None of the privatised industries
8. OFTEL was founded in:
a) 1981
b) 1984
c) 1991
9. Regulatory agencies for the privatised industries:
a) Are more independent of Ministers than are Executive Agencies
b) Have about the same independence as Executive Agencies
c) Are less independent than Executive Agencies
10. Self-regulation has over the last two decades:
a) Become more important
b) Remained at an unchanged level of importance
c) Become less important
11. The Food Standards Agency:
a) Is a nineteenth century creation
b) Was created in the 1940s
c) Was created at the start of the new millennium
12. Inspection within government has over the last two decades:
a) Grown in scale
b) Remained about the same
c) Diminished in scale
13. The European Union has:
a) Encouraged new Agency creation
b) Made no difference to the rate of Agency creation
c) Hindered Agency creation
14. The New Regulatory State has made Parliamentary accountability:
a) Easier to achieve
b) Neither easier or harder to achieve
c) Harder to achieve
15. The New Regulatory State has:
a) Diminished the importance of performance indicators
b) Made no difference to the importance of performance indicators
c) Increased the importance of performance indicators
