King heading off cause of malfunction in government (7)
I believe the answer is:
kremlin
'government' is the definition.
(I know that Kremlin is a type of government)
'king heading off cause of malfunction' is the wordplay.
'king' becomes 'K' (abbreviation for king in chess).
'heading off' means to remove the first letter.
'cause of malfunction' becomes 'gremlin' (machine malfunctions might be blamed on gremlins).
'gremlin' with its initial letter taken off is 'remlin'.
'k'+'remlin'='KREMLIN'
'in' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for kremlin that I've seen before include "Citadel of a Russian town" , "Historic fortified complex in the heart of Moscow" , "It houses the offices of the Russian government" , "House of the Russian government" , "powerful red element?" .)