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It's about the newly-formed Coordination Committee to follow up on and monitor Cabinet decisions, chaired by the PM's Secretary-General Korbsak Sabhavasu, comprising all permanent secretaries, the Cabinet's secretary-general, the Budget Bureau chief, and the Social and Economic Development Agency's head.

"The committee won't deal with policies. It's there to coordinate the work of various government agencies to ensure that Cabinet decisions are implemented," Korbsak told me in his "tweet" in response to my question.

 Abhisit said the committee was deemed necessary because, after a year in office, he detected a lack of progress in several projects. The PM apparently tried to shoot down any notion that this is a "mini-Cabinet" in the making.

"It's supposed to do the legwork for the government and not usurp the Cabinet's mandate," the premier insisted.

That, of course, also means that it's a far cry from being a "kitchen Cabinet" - a term used to describe a collection of unofficial advisers by a political leader - or the PM's inner circle.

Strictly speaking, you could probably call it a "council of bureaucrats" since most of the members are senior government officials reporting directly to politicians who form the real Cabinet.

You could be cynical and ask how this new committee can be expected to "follow up" on and "monitor" the process of implementation of Cabinet decisions when in fact all the permanent secretaries are supposed to be the ones who translate those decisions into action in the first place.

Politicians like to say that they make policies and that their permanent secretaries implement them. Now, if a certain Cabinet decision doesn't get implemented, who's to blame?

If you ask a minister, he or she would point an accusing finger at the bureaucrats in charge. The officials would in turn tell you that if some of the major projects didn't get implemented, some "political obstacles" must certainly have been in the way.

If that's the case, the new Coordination Committee will just be another new layer of bureaucracy on top of the existing one.

But if we look at it from a brighter side, you may get a group of really bright and enthusiastic senior technocrats ready to prove that they can represent the people's interests.

The committee could come up with a monthly report of the progress - or lack of it - on all the major projects approved by the Cabinet. It could also produce a standard key performance index (KPI) against which the work of each government agency could be measured.

If given sufficient power and freedom, the group could pressure Cabinet members to be more transparent and accountable to the public. In other words, the committee could really serve as the public's eyes and ears.

If we have given up hope on politicians' ability to pick the best and the brightest to serve as Cabinet members, we could probably, in the best-case scenario, expect this sort of "monitoring agency" to help us grade the performance of each ministry. It could help us decide who among the Cabinet members is doing a good job and who isn't.

But of course, even in the best of times, there is no such thing as a "best-case scenario" in the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians. One can only compare "the worst-case" against "the next worst-case".

If it's any consolation, you can probably take some comfort in the words of Trairong Suwannakhiri, the new deputy premier for economic affairs, to the effect that: "We have been in the Nato mode for too long. Now we must switch to the AFTA gear."

Nato stands for "No Action, Talk Only". AFTA, in his context, represents "Action First, Talk After(wards)".

Don't ask me whether Trairong was in his usual playful mood when he made that highly provocative statement. He could be dead serious and still laughing.