In my view, not necessarily — the Prime Minister can delegate their statutory power, but that doesn’t mean they’re not responsible for what their minister does with that power. That is, just because it’s not a regular “duty” for the Prime Minister to do something themselves does not mean they’re not responsible for knowing or caring about what the minister is doing with their delegated powers.
This is already the case. Current law has no requirement that executive staff be citizens. If you want to change that for ministers as well — as your proposal would — then I think that deserves to be its own proposal, because I don’t really see why that needs to be tied to codifying the minister re-confirmation votes we already regularly hold.
I did not say that?
We already routinely votes to re-confirm ministers retained by the Prime Minister (at least for regularly scheduled terms). By “routinely” I mean that you can find examples here or here or here or here, or in some cases the Chair didn’t even format the vote differently but this is another example.
I am suggesting that we keep that system and actually codify it. What your proposal would do is prohibit such votes unless the Prime Minister modifies a minister’s “duties, titles, or seniority.” I do not think that such a proposal “satisfies both sides of the equation” nor is it limited in effect to addressing “the vacuums that resignations and removals inevitably create.”
So yes, theoretically, the Cabinet can do an about-face in the middle of the term. Anybody confirmed by the Assembly could do something different than what they promised at the time of confirmation. In the case of the Cabinet, however, I think it’s more accurate to say that the Prime Minister builds a team to help them implement their agenda (usually the one they, like, just campaigned on), and thus I think it makes sense to hold new confirmation votes when the person leading that team changes (or returns to office after a new campaign and thus a new agenda).
You are more than welcome to advocate for broader executive reform, but at some point, we should call a spade a spade, and I think that your proposal is closer to executive reform than it is to just addressing minister re-confirmation votes.