Distinction between the permanent and political executive: The executive branch in a modem state has two branches. the political executive and the permanent executive. The political executive consists of ministers and permanent executive consists of civil servants. Both together carry out the functions of executive branch of government.
Following are the main distinctions between the political executive and permanent executive.
Political and non-political character: The political executive consists of ministers, which belong to a political party and are committed to the policies and ideology of their political party. On the other hand, the members of permanent executive the civil servants are politically neutral. Political neutrality is the basic tenet of civil servants.
Policy formulation is done by political executive : The final authority to formulate policies lies with the political executive. The civil servants provide information as well as advice and assist political executive in policy formulation.
Political executive is responsible to people : Political executive is responsible to people through their representative bodies. On the other hand civil servants are not directly responsible to people. In fact, they are responsible to political executiv
Political executive consists of Amateurs, Civil servants are experts : The members of political executive are not trained people. They are members of political parties. On the other hand, civil servants are specially trained people to perform their administrative duties. Short tenure vs.
long and fixed tenure : The members of political executives have a short tenure of four to five years. On the other hand, members of permanent executives have long tenure. They pursue their profession on permanent basis.
