REFORM OF RUSSIA'S FINANCES AND CENTRAL ADMINISTRATION III
Statute defined dearly the jurisdiction of each ministry and set forth
the pattern of internal organization along logical and efficient lines.
The internal structure of the ministries was the most important and
valuable contribution to Russian administrative practice of the period.
The remnants of the collegial pattern were swept away; the minister
became the sole effective master in his ministry. However, as an excellent
and experienced administrator, Speransky knew that one individual
could not do everything by himself, that the secret of administrative
efficiency lay in the delegation of functions and responsibility. The
minister's unquestionable right to formulate policy and to take
responsibility for the entire ministry before the Emperor having been
established, the Statute entrusted the technical preparation of legisla-
tion and the supervision of simple routine matters to subordinate of-
ficials. For this purpose, the ministries were subdivided into depart-
ments, each dealing with a specific function or concern of the ministry.
The chiefs of the departments were, so to speak, the minister's staff
officers; they prepared the material on which policy decisions and
legislation were based; they saw to it that the minister's instructions
were properly carried out; they conducted the mechanical routine
affairs, which did not need special policy decisions, without referring
to the minister. To advise the minister - who might be new to the
husiness - a Council of the Ministry was established. The Council
gave the minister the benefit of the experience of the permanent
officials. It consisted of the Assistant Minister (a sort of "chief of
staff"), the chiefs of the departments, as well as outside officials -
other ministers or their assistants - when their help was needed on
special or technical questions. The Council of the Ministry had no
power of decision, nor were its recommendations binding on the
minister. It could only advise and give the minister the benefit of the
experience and technical knowledge of its members. Its value as a
source of precise technical information and as the foundation for
consistency and continuity of policy can be readily seen.^1
Speransky went further yet. Better than anyone, he knew the distance
which separated the government from the people, the inadequacy of
the sources of information at the disposal of the ministers on matters
concerning the interests and very lives of the subjects. To obviate this
deficiency, the Statute provided that private individuals - who had
no regular bureaucratic status or official position - could be invited
to the Council of the Ministry on a consultative basis. The provision
recalls to mind the institution of "public members" in contemporary
1 PSZ, 24,686. passim.