How important is the (UK) cabinet?

One way which the cabinet is losing importance is by the introduction of ‘sofa governments’ and the use of high level executive committees. Blair is one example of this, he used a ‘kitchen cabinet’ meaning he engaged more with big beasts such as Gordon Brown and Robin Cook between 1997-2007. Similarly, ‘The Quad’ was used by Cameron and Clegg during the coalition as a way of setting cabinet agenda and minimalising the decision-making role from the full cabinet. This shows that the cabinet are not necessarily as important as they may have been previously due to the introduction of pre-cabinet meetings and executive committees. However, it could be argued that because the cabinet are needed for policy approval, it therefore still plays an important role and is obviously of high importance. Although in theory they are needed for policy approval, as shown under Blair, policies such as the 1997 Bank of England interest rates policy was introduced without the approval of the cabinet, overall showing that the cabinet is not important.The cabinet can also be deemed to be less important due to the trend towards presidentialism, an idea illustrated by Dowding in his 2013 article. In recent years, the PM has started to use close personal political advisors rather than the cabinet. For example, the significance of Alistair Campbell to Tony Blair’s administration or of Craig Oliver to Cameron’s conservative government is emphasizes this. Again, this idea of a prime-ministerial and even a presidential government refers to the PMs dominance over the cabinet implying the cabinet is unimportant in the executive body of the UK. Indeed, Michael Foley suggested there has been a growth in the spatial leadership meaning PMs such as Thatcher tend to distance themselves from their cabinet making them somewhat like a president. However, it could be argued that this is not the case, the PM is not head of state like in the USA and the cabinet is still of high importance as it is a symbol of the collective government. However, the increase in the use of personal mandates also shows the increase in presidentialism and therefore the decrease in the importance of the cabinet.