Interministerial WeeklyInterministerial WeeklyThese memorandum writing campaigns ensued every time a change was proposed. In the fifty-three-year history of Interministerial Affairs, no policy had ever been enacted by a Ministry without a hotly contested battle of memorandum that considerably delayed approval. And sometimes these battles involved as many as seven Ministries, all making a written case for either quashing the proposed policy or going forward with it, which meant that staff at Interministerial Affairs were forever responding to correspondences and re-evaluating initial policy proposals in light of all the criticism being made.
One Assistant Deputy Minister began every meeting by asking, “Which children are fighting in the sandbox today?” This led to many staff referring to I
