Cabinet Office
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The fact that the cabinet office where most of the membership consists of ministers with a resposibility to their own department giving it dual focus. The cabinet office and its members fuse political and executive functions. Its combination of political and executive work may be considered under four headings.
1. It is the body in which many of the most important political decisions are taken to which they are reported. This is true of a decision to go to war, approve a policy line on education or something else, and settle the total figure for public spending. Some decisions such as whether the President should address a joint gathering of the two houses of parliament may seem trivial, but they will be considered at cabinet level because of their potential political sensitivity. According to Lord Wakeham, who served in office for Mrs. Thatcher and John Major, cabinet is..."a reporting body and reviewing body rather than a decision maker."
2.The Cabinet is the office that plans the business of parliament. approving the details and timing of legislation which is to be laid before parliament. Such planning is subject to the oppositions right to supply days and to propose motions of censure, and to the rights of private members. most cabinet ministers sit in the commons and ministers determine much of the work of parliament by preparing major bills, establishing its agenda, and organising opinion and votes to get the legislation passed.
3.It is the arbiter of policy differences, for example, for disagreements which cannot be resolved in bilateral negotiations or in cabinet committee. Ministers would also expect to be a party to sensitive decisions which affect the responsibility of the government as a whole.
4. The Cabinet office is the body which provides a general oversight and coordination of the governments general policies. it is often argued that this last role is not well performed, largely because the pressures of departmental work prevent Cabinet ministers from considering policies of other departments and overall strategy. Some of the institutional changes in recent years been an acknowledgement of this weakness and an attempt to rectify it.
Source - Dennis Kavanagh - British Politics, continuities and change