The British Civil Service:Perspectives on ‘Decline’and ‘Modernisation’Robert Pyper and June Burnham
This article was stimulated by the contradiction between two predominant characterisations of the British civil service.Some analysts see it as in decline,possibly terminally,overwhelmed by the challenges posed by the reforms and the changes in its policy environment;others see it as in the vanguard by adopting modernising reforms and adapting to new public service values.After critically examining these opposing perspectives on civil service ‘decline’and ‘modernisation’,we conclude that these contrasting analyses suffer from adopting too limited a view of the British civil service in its historical and international context.The British civil service has during its long history progressively modernised and in a progressive way—becoming less corrupt,more accountable,more pluralist,more responsive to citizens’needs—often sceptical about reform,but nevertheless moving with the times.
Keywords:civil service;modernisation;Whitehall;reform
Introduction
Students of politics and public management encounter con?icting assessments of the British civil service.On the one hand,international bodies and textbooks regularly locate it in the vanguard of reform,introducing changes that others follow (Dunleavy 1994;OECD 1995;Hughes 2003;Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004).This image derived from the administrative policies of ‘New Right’governments in the 1980s,whose intellectual signi?cance was enhanced by early British research on the ‘new public management’(NPM)(such as Pollitt 1990;Dunleavy 1991;Hood 1991).The arrival in power of ‘New Labour’in 1997,with a programme explicitly labelled as Modernising Public Services and Modernising Government ,strengthened the notion of a British civil service following a path of progressive reform (HM Treasury 1998;Cabinet Of?ce 1999a;and see Newman 2001;Pearce and Margo 2007),especially if by ‘modernisation’we accept the Oxford English Dictionary de?nition of ‘adapting to modern’,that is,‘present or current’‘needs or habits’,‘adopting modern ways or views’.These changes did not,in Patrick Dunleavy’s opinion (2006,326),call into question for ‘most orthodox authors’the British civil service’s position as ‘one of the least corrupt,most studied and best reputed public service systems in the world’.
Yet a quite opposite view of the British civil service is taken by several specialists (Chapman 1992and 1997;Campbell and Wilson 1995;Chapman and O’Toole 1995and 2010;Wilson and Barker 1995;O’Toole 2004and 2006;and see Barberis’edited collection of 1996).They portray an institution whose organisational prin-ciples,culture and ethical standards are in disarray and decline.They predict
‘the
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190ROBERT PYPER,JUNE BURNHAM end of the civil service’,‘the end of Whitehall’or‘the end of the Whitehall model’—Whitehall being the London street housing ministerial departments that has given its name to the central administrative apparatus and its modus operandi (we return to this de?nitional question below).Pessimistic assessments come too from those exponents of the‘governance’narrative who identify a fragmentation of policy-making and delivery,‘a hollowing out of the state’,‘a differentiated polity’and‘a state under stress’in which of?cials have lost their traditional controls or competence(Rhodes1994and1997;Foster and Plowden1996;Weller et al.1997; Foster2001;Rhodes et al.2003).Their arguments are backed up by evaluations of a number of Whitehall departments as‘not?t for purpose’(Home Secretary John Reid,23May2006;Cabinet Of?ce Capability Reviews;and see Reform2009).
How can these apparently opposing?ndings be reconciled?Arbitration has not only academic interest but also constitutional importance,because the alternative con-ceptions of the civil service affect the behaviour of civil servants as they interpret and develop their own roles in the organisation,and inform the projects of reform-ers,especially in drawing up the texts that will implement the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act2010,which for the?rst time puts the British civil service on a statutory footing.
We suggest three reasons for the contrasting views.First,analysts are judging the British civil service by different criteria,each referring to different aspects of civil service work.Some see excellence because they are looking at the‘production engineering’side of government as opposed to the‘broader issues of bureaucratic design and operation’,to use Christopher Hood’s distinction(2005,12).Some are more concerned with the role of of?cials within government and parliament;others with their impact on the wider environment of policy-making and implementation. Each analyst prioritises certain processes over others.
Second,the different priorities are motivated by different theoretical and normative frameworks.Owen Hughes(2003,3)suggests there is a paradigmatic divide in the public management domain between those using an economics approach and those working in the‘traditional public administration’discipline.For some the organi-sational model(normative as well as analytical)is the market;for others it is a bureaucracy(Ostrom1973).The paradigmatic divide is somewhat blurred by the rise of‘economic explanations in political science’(Dunleavy1991;Self1993). Public choice theorists accept many assumptions of the bureaucratic model,such as hierarchical structure and political neutrality,but use economists’arguments to test the validity of other assumptions,including those that see British bureaucrats pursuing the public interest,or leaving organisational choices to ministers(see Dunleavy1991;Dowding1995;James2003).Nevertheless,the division of opinion is at its most‘ideological’(Hood2005,18)between,on the one hand,‘marketeers’such as the Centre for Policy Studies,Institute of Economic Affairs and,more circumspectly,the‘free trade’Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD)(Richards and Smith2002,102,134), and,on the other,the‘traditionalists’whose precepts on the British civil service still owe much to the Northcote-Trevelyan Report(Northcote and Trevelyan 1854)on merit-based recruitment and promotion,to Woodrow Wilson(1887)on ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES191 the separation of administration from politics and to Weber(1947[1921])on rule-based hierarchical,professional bureaucracy(see Bevir and Rhodes2003, 147).
The third reason for the contrasting opinions is their limited recognition of the broader comparative cultural and historical contexts.When added to the differences in normative perspective and focus of interest,it leads to a partial reading of the evidence that tends to exaggerate the radical nature of recent changes to the British civil service,while undervaluing the profound secular modernisation that has progressively taken place.
Perspectives on Decline
Our argument is that the‘decline’of the British civil service has been greatly exaggerated.The‘decline’theses tend to misinterpret the role and status of the civil service in its historical context,and/or overestimate the scale of the problems that are said to contribute to its decline.Fundamentally,these interpretations of the civil service lack historical depth,and are based upon a misreading of the relationships between the civil service,the broader mass of central government,and parliament, as well as a misunderstanding of public service modes of delivery.We can group the ‘decline’theses into two broad categories:the‘decline of the Whitehall model’and the‘governance/fragmentation/hollow state’critique.The Whitehall model is the conventional point of departure for analyses of the British civil service,and contains within it the most negative views of the reform agenda.The governance critique occupies a prominent place in contemporary conceptualisations of government and,paradoxically,contains both a critique of the Whitehall model and an af?nity with that model’s pessimistic prognosis.
‘Decline of the Whitehall Model’
The Whitehall model is the most well-known analytical tool used to understand the functioning of the British central bureaucracy and its relationship to ministers and parliament.
Its key elements are:a career civil service governed by an ethos of impartiality; competitive recruitment systems geared toward producing generalist administra-tors;promotion on merit,mainly from within the organisation itself;accountability governed by the doctrine of ministerial responsibility for the work of departments; expert policy advice to ministers designed to enable them to function effectively in the parliamentary arena,from of?cials who are effectively the monopoly providers of advice;a civil service charged with implementing policies collectively agreed by ministers;and hierarchical bureaucratic structures,organised on a functional basis, as the mechanism through which policy is implemented(for discussions,see,for example,Drewry and Butcher1991,23–26,150–153;Pyper1995,6–15;Burnham and Pyper2008,32,37–41).
Many observers subscribed to the Whitehall model as an accurate general descrip-tion of the civil service,and adhered to its implications in a positive spirit,seeing it ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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192ROBERT PYPER,JUNE BURNHAM as a desirable role model.However,as a guide to understanding the British civil service,this model is analytically impoverished,empirically ill-founded and histori-cally weak in its reading of evidence.This can be illustrated with reference to four key points.
First,having identi?ed the key characteristics of the traditional civil service as being based around bureaucratic hierarchies,the research focus of this model is then located on a very selective group of senior of?cials,and it analyses a limited range of their roles and functions,concentrating on relationships with ministers, high policy-making,accountability and issues surrounding impartiality and neu-trality.This narrow focus on an elite aligns with the‘club government’analogy developed from Marquand’s original concept by Michael Moran(2003).Evalu-ating changes to the civil service in relation to these particular features,adherents to the Whitehall model conclude that the organisation is‘in decline’.These observers became increasingly concerned about the impact of change(particu-larly,but not solely,the structural and managerial reforms implemented by the Thatcher and Major governments and their successors)upon the key components of this model.Richard Chapman’s work epitomises this outlook.A series of articles(Chapman1992and1997;Chapman and O’Toole1995and2010) charted what was perceived as the decline and fall of the traditional civil service by those who believed it had been encapsulated by the Whitehall model.Re-viewing the effect of converting departments’executive divisions into semi-autonomous agencies(including the structural changes,managerial innovations and changes to accountability regimes)and taking into account other departures from the model,such as reforms enabling people to be recruited at senior level from the private sector and other public bodies,Chapman(1992)speculated as to whether these managerial projects might mark‘the end of the civil service’,as traditionally understood.He later cast aside any doubt(Chapman1997).He believed that there had been a fundamental erosion of the core values and func-tions of the civil service.He now saw the civil service as a weakened,fragmented organisation(or series of organisations),its functions reduced by privatisation and its role in policy-making marginalised by creeping politicisation.A similar con-clusion was reached by Colin Campbell and Graham Wilson,who analysed‘the end of Whitehall’,describing what they saw as the‘death of a paradigm’from a variety of causes including the reforms so heavily criticised by Chapman,the characteristics and conduct of the Thatcher and Major governments and more deeply rooted failings and weaknesses in the British constitution.‘By the1990s... the Whitehall model had come under such stress that its survival seemed ques-tionable’(Campbell and Wilson1995,20).
Second,this‘decline and fall’narrative exhibits a tendency to put past generations of senior civil servants on an arti?cially high pedestal,from which more recent senior of?cials appear to have fallen.There is an associated tendency to over-praise past performance in certain spheres without giving adequate recognition to prob-lems and de?ciencies.Some examples include:
?vaunting past ethical standards,including hierarchical accountability to minis-ters,ministerial responsibility to parliament and the‘anonymity’of of?cials.
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES193 sibility also ignored the extent to which,even in the so-called‘golden age’of this constitutional precept,civil servants would occasionally be‘named and blamed’in order to provide convenient cover for erring ministers(Pyper1987).They also tended to underestimate the extent to which,historically,many senior civil servants were well known in the‘Westminster village’,belying the require-ments of‘anonymity’;
?exaggerating the threats to the political neutrality of the civil service by ignor-ing historical evidence and overplaying the extent of‘politicisation’.The latter is viewed by Burnham and Pyper(2008,75–94)as falling into four‘risk’categories,in each of which there has been limited evidence of real and sub-stantial‘politicisation’,and few examples that do not carry historical echoes of some kind.For example,while critics argue that the proliferation of special policy advisers and think tanks over recent years has eroded the Whitehall model’s emphasis on ministers’exclusive reliance for independent policy advice upon their trusted civil servants(see for example,Campbell and Wilson 1995,5),the historical record shows that the civil service was never a ‘monopoly provider’in this sphere.Furthermore,the dispassionate objectivity of past senior of?cials can be overstated.Taking the1950s as their ideal point of comparison,Richard Chapman and Barry O’Toole(2010)criticised the ‘marginalisation’of the senior civil service in more recent times,perceiving an increasing identi?cation of of?cials with ministerial policies,and a con-sequential shift away from some of the key features of the Whitehall model:‘there is now little counterweight from the civil service.The leadership partnership has gone.Leadership in the civil service,as previously understood, is irrelevant’(Chapman and O’Toole2010,134).A counter-argument would be that this lauding of the‘administrative leadership’shown by senior civil servants such as Sir Edward Bridges and Sir Norman Brook in the1950s, which argues that their work was exercised‘with a strict understanding of the constitutional,political and practical limitations on their authority’(Chapman and O’Toole2010,127),forgets the repeated instances when the senior man-darins in the period between1945and1964consciously subverted the expressed desire of their political leaders to begin the process of modernising the civil service through rationalisation of staff numbers and the introduction of more modern and ef?cient working methods(e.g.Theakston1995,65–69, 74–75).The‘successes’of Bridges and Brook effectively created a logjam which only began to be addressed by the Fulton Report of1968(see below);
?taking an unbalanced approach to the modern‘fragmentation’of the civil service resulting from agenci?cation by creating a false counterpoise with past ‘unity’.The civil service of the past looked united only if the limited perspective of the Whitehall model was accepted,and the disparate elements of the system beyond the upper reaches of the major Whitehall departments(for example,the Scottish and Welsh Of?ces,the entire Northern Ireland Civil Service,the ranks of the specialists as opposed to the generalist administrators,more junior staff, and the great mass of of?cialdom charged with the implementation of policy and service delivery)were https://www.doczj.com/doc/2c17183515.html,anisational fragmentation stemming from the process of agenci?cation may or may not have been a bad thing,but it did not,ipso facto,signal‘decline’.
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194ROBERT PYPER,JUNE BURNHAM Third,while overplaying and exaggerating the positive features of the‘traditional’civil service,the‘Whitehall decline’thesis underestimates past organisational and managerial failings.For example:
?the relatively poor performance of the tasks beyond the policy sphere,which the senior civil service should have been ful?lling.These included management of budgets,forecasting and cost–bene?t analysis,oversight and management of policy implementation and service delivery,human resource management,and the conduct of relations with an array of external bodies including local authori-ties,industrial and commercial enterprises;
?the lack of attention to,and under-management of,those groups of civil ser-vants beyond the senior mandarins,especially the delivery agents,from clerical staff to prison of?cers to scientists(see data in Burnham and Pyper2008, 124–125,193).One feature of the managerial reforms that?owed across the civil service from the1980s was a new focus on the work of such groups.For the critics,the agenci?cation element of the NPM reforms served to undermine civil service unity and public-sector values.However,Elizabeth Mellon’s research established that agency chief executives(whether recruited from inside or outside the civil service)‘appear to espouse the normative civil service value of integrity,alongside the more proactive,private sector approach to change’—and they were less willing than other senior civil servants‘to bend the rules to achieve results’(Mellon2000,204–205,220).Christopher Pollitt (2003,26,40)considers that the NPM reforms are non-revolutionary,with little proven effect on bureaucratic culture any more than on economy,ef?-ciency and effectiveness.
Fourth,as a corollary of its failure to take full account of these issues,the‘Whitehall decline’thesis underestimates the positive features of the changes brought about by the modernisation agendas of recent governments,including the new focus on service delivery(beyond and within the civil service)and improvements in the calibre of management at all levels.The new emphasis on‘managing downwards’(rather than the traditional focus on policy advice upwards)also had a positive impact on the old‘primary’role of policy development,because it served to remind the senior civil service of the need to understand implementation challenges and the reasons for delivery failures.
The‘Governance/Fragmentation/Hollow State’Critique
At the core of this critique lies an assumption that the British civil service is in decline because it has been engulfed by waves of changes which have eroded its status and previous hegemony in particular respects.
‘Governance’is a term and an approach that enlarges the concept of‘government’to encompass the functioning networks of governmental and non-governmental bodies in a more inclusive notion,and at the same time asserts that the role of government is changing towards one of‘steering’policy delivery rather than itself doing the‘rowing’.Drawing on research from the‘ESRC Whitehall Programme’, Rod Rhodes(2000)synthesised the implications of this change from government to governance in terms of:the heightened signi?cance of policy networks;a reduced ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES195 role for government where the private sector is used for activities formerly provided directly by the state;increased attention to moral and ethical issues and standards of conduct,as the‘in-house’,hierarchical systems of oversight are replaced by looser arrangements with outside providers that might not work to the same principles;the introduction of NPM initiatives such as the transfer of private sector management systems and techniques to the public sector,new structures for the delivery of public services and the introduction of quasi-(or pseudo-?)markets, contractorisation and consumerism;and ongoing programmes of institutional and constitutional reform which would have implications for policies,the political culture and the governing framework itself.
The‘hollowing out of the state’is thought by some authors to be the inevitable consequence of the move(or return)to governance.Simply stated,the hollowing-out thesis(Rhodes1994and1997,17–19,87–111;see also Foster and Plowden 1996)argues that the British government has steadily‘lost’policy functions ‘upwards to the European Union,downwards to special-purpose bodies and out-wards to agencies’.In fact,the drift‘upwards’involves not only the gradual ceding of power to the EU,but also the continuous process of engagement in the complex interdependencies of international politics and government,via negotiations and compromises with a wide range of state and transnational organisations,including foreign powers,international bodies like the UN and the World Bank,and multi-national corporations.The drift‘downwards’includes dealing with the conse-quences of privatisation and contracting out,including a constant recon?guring of the roles and responsibilities of departments as large areas of public service are delivered through market mechanisms by a wide array of public and private-sector organisations.The drift‘outwards’or sideways refers to the trend towards the deployment of arm’s-length governmental bodies(such as executive agencies)as mechanisms through which policy can be implemented.
Those supporting the‘hollowing-out’thesis argue that it produced signi?cant problems and challenges for Whitehall departments in relation to the creation and co-ordination of policy,and to the application of rules governing the accountability of ministers and civil servants.Some traditional Whitehall policy spheres(most obviously those within the scope of the EU treaties)became at the very least shared territories.In the domestic context,marketisation and contractualisation meant that,for example,the civil service(largely Treasury of?cialdom)was required to manage the central elements of the public–private partnerships scheme(PPP). However,as this last example demonstrates,‘delegation’of delivery responsibilities has been accompanied by such a strengthening of controls on budgetary and performance objectives at all governmental levels that the diagnosis of‘hollowing out’is by no means universally shared.
The negative effects of fragmentation on the British civil service have been given further emphasis within analyses based upon network theory.Again,the work of Rhodes lay at the heart of this conceptual approach,at least in its UK context, although others made signi?cant contributions to the key ideas(see,for example, Richardson and Jordan1979;Jordan and Richardson1987;Jordan1990;Marsh and Rhodes1992).‘Policy networks are a long-standing feature of British govern-ment...what is new is the multiplication of networks’(Rhodes et al.2003,26–27).?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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196ROBERT PYPER,JUNE BURNHAM Where the civil service is concerned,the implication of the network theory approach is that the formal Whitehall structures and processes must be viewed as only one element of the policy-making and implementation process.As a result of these network approaches to the understanding of public policy-making,civil servants as individuals and as groups,and the departments they inhabit,are placed within a much broader context in which non-governmental bodies,groups and individuals assume important roles,and of?cials adjudicate between competing interests,negotiate and compromise to try to secure the outcomes desired by ministers.
Associated with these analyses,the‘differentiated polity’thesis synthesises ele-ments of network theory,governance,the hollowing out of the state—and extends the analysis to give particular attention to the pre-existing and potential impact of devolution and decentralisation(see Rhodes et al.2003).It notes that all three approaches emphasise specialisation and fragmentation,in contrast to the‘collec-tive’and‘unifying’assumptions and principles of the Whitehall model.Policy networks divide the policy-making arena‘vertically’into policy segments,each focused around a particular department,or even a division of a department.The ‘governance’theme draws attention to the fragmentation of policy programmes between numerous service providers,some in executive agencies still nominally part of the department but split off‘horizontally’from senior of?cials,and others connected only by contracts,funding agreements or looser arrangements,but each specialising in its own particular sector.The‘hollowing-out thesis’asserts that, unlike the Westminster-Whitehall portrayal of a well co-ordinated governmental system,the picture is of a very weakened state that struggles to exert a‘joined-up’control over functions that have been dispersed in all directions.To these aspects of the way in which the British state is divided into different sections,each with its own characteristics(the‘differentiated polity’as outlined by Rhodes1997,7),were added after1999the distinctive arrangements of the three nations/regions/ provinces(Scotland,Wales,Northern Ireland),to which new powers were devolved(or restored).As the specialists of those areas knew all along,there was already a signi?cant differentiation between the component parts of the UK,includ-ing notably in the way that the civil service operated in these areas.
While these perspectives in many respects provide us with a richer understanding of the place of the civil service in the polity,there are three main problems attached to the governance/fragmentation/hollow state critique when it is deployed in order to show that the civil service is‘in decline’:
?there is a degree of‘ahistoricism’which leads to an exaggeration of the differ-ences between the domestic position of the civil service in the age of‘gover-nance’(to use the most encompassing term)and in previous eras.It can be argued that‘governance’was a dominant mode of British public administration in the past,and the civil service was an integral part of the policy networks.
Even at the height of post-war dirigisme,the1945–51Labour governments expected local authorities to deliver massive housing and education pro-grammes(Whitehall’s strong?nancial and regulatory controls on local govern-ment emerged only from1976),while complex networks emerged to facilitate the running of the nationalised industries and the NHS.Before that period,with ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES197 the marked exceptions of the social insurance system and the wartime command economies,public services were managed in large measure through local authorities and localised agencies,which in turn worked with an array of private and voluntary bodies.Historians tend to doubt the novelty of https://www.doczj.com/doc/2c17183515.html,ernance seems to be the norm in Britain;the post-war period in which direct intervention by central government increased was an exception to which the eventual return to‘steering’was a reaction(Lowe and Rollings2000, 100).Straightforward‘government’seems to have been a temporary phenom-enon.In brief,the civil service has not‘lost’‘traditional’instruments of direct control as a consequence of‘hollowing out’because it lacked these for most of the modern period;
?similarly,the‘hollowing-out’effect of internationalisation and Europeanisation can be overstated.For the civil service,the‘loss of control’can be exaggerated if we ignore the strong and frequent involvement of UK of?cials in the minutiae of the policy negotiations,to which they bring their traditional UK policy network partners from the private and voluntary sectors.Whether negotiating in Brussels or other loci for international policy-making,or steering EU/international policy implementation from their Whitehall bases,large numbers of British civil servants play active roles.It might be argued that greater degrees of internationalisation and Europeanisation bring greater involvement by the British civil service(see,for example,Richards and Smith2002,156);?a perverse consequence of the apparent dif?culties caused by interpreting the fragmentation and complex networks features of governance as a novel and causal factor in a loss of civil service(and hence central governmental)control can be the attempt by central government to reassert top-down,command and control approaches through a barrage of Public Service Agreements,perfor-mance indicators and intrusive regulatory frameworks(see Hood et al.1999and 2004),rather than seeking to reduce burdens by introducing real decentralisa-tion within a differentiated polity which would provide for more consensual, partnership-based‘small government’solutions(as practised,some might argue,in earlier phases of British history,and in other liberal democracies). Perspectives on Modernisation
We have argued that some assessments of today’s British civil service are made overly pessimistic by their relatively narrow perspective.Portrayals of the service as actively modernising and modernised,well ahead of others,can similarly be re?ned by adopting a broader perspective,international or historical.
International Perspectives on Britain’s New Public Management First,let us locate more precisely the British civil service in relation to its counter-parts abroad.The OECD has charted the adoption of managerial reforms under the banner of‘modernisation’(OECD2005),a term adopted widely by OECD members though not by Thatcher’s government.These reforms are equated with and syn-thesised as‘new public management’,de?ned by Hood(1991,4–5)as:disaggrega-tion into units headed by a manager delegated substantial autonomy;emphasis on ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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198ROBERT PYPER,JUNE BURNHAM output performance rather than due process;stress on private-sector methods,such as?exible recruitment and pay systems;and‘parsimony’in resource use.
Britain is one of three countries that from the1980s disaggregated large parts of departments into partly autonomous executive agencies—but‘agenci?cation...has a much longer history in Scandinavia’(OECD2004,7).The OECD(2009)put the British civil service among the leaders on open recruitment,but well behind Australia,Sweden and New Zealand on delegation of personnel management. Britain is second in its use of performance-related pay(behind Australia),but the UK Treasury restricts managers’autonomy by monitoring bargaining parameters for budgetary compliance,unlike its counterparts in Australia and New Zealand (Rexed et al.2007,5–6).Britain was later than Belgium,Canada and the USA in implementing programmes for human resource management,leadership and change management(OECD2003,7).The Hutton Report(2004)on Dr David Kelly’s death con?rmed the amateur nature of Whitehall’s personnel management: only in2006did Whitehall recognise the‘human resources profession’.Britain was only average in its use of performance assessments for making personnel decisions—leaving ample room for the Conservative–Liberal Democrat government to‘make it easier to reward the best civil servants and remove the least effective’(UK Government2010,27).
Britain came?rst in2007for short-term budgetary?exibility but ninth on perfor-mance budgeting and15th on long-term budgeting(OECD2009).Budgetary?ex-ibility is a pragmatic alternative to planning,which the Thatcher government was notoriously against,yet the long-standing criticism of Whitehall’s?nancial man-agement(see below,and Public Accounts Committee2008)makes it dif?cult to blame just the politicians.On‘parsimony’,Britain came second to Canada in2006 and?rst in2008for its use of regulatory impact assessments;and sixth in1998but equal?rst in2005on other reductions in‘paperwork’.Finally,a European assess-ment of online public services put Britain second,behind the Netherlands,for its national e-portal(OECD2009).The British civil service is therefore clearly among the leading current adopters of modern managerial techniques—though no more so than the Nordic countries and rather less than‘Westminster system’colleagues. Furthermore,Britain’s performance is enhanced by the weighting given to ‘programmes’(OECD1995and2009).Germany,Sweden and Switzerland,with already dispersed public administrations,had less need of disaggregation pro-grammes than Britain with its centralised government and large departments.From a Norwegian perspective,‘the focus on the UK example carries with it the danger of exaggerating the changes to public service provision’[since]‘some of the mea-sures associated with NPM...are‘long-standing features of many European states’(Eliassen and Sitter2008,103).Another continental critic(Kickert1997)sees NPM as an‘Anglo-American’private-sector approach,inadequate for the public sector.In anglophone literature continental states tend to be‘portrayed simply as rather backward administrations’(Pollitt2007,20).Hood et al.(2004)con?rmed White-hall’s insularity when they discovered that the British language of public-sector regulation did not travel very effectively.Greater awareness in Whitehall of how service providers in the Netherlands were‘steered’(Kickert1997)might well have reduced the numbers of British‘waste watchers,quality police,and sleaze-busters’?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES199 (Hood et al.1999).Deeper understanding of Germany’s arrangements would have made redundant a Scottish devolution policy paper’s request that the‘Civil Service Code should be amended to recognise the importance of co-operation and mutual respect’(Calman Commission2009,para.4.23).
European comparisons suggest too that civil service reform is facilitated in Britain by its constitutional and political system.Creating a hundred executive agencies without new legislation would be unimaginable in Germany,Sweden or France (Pollitt2007,17).British governments share with other core NPM states some advantageous levers over the civil service:a majoritarian party system;centralised authority;few statutory obstacles;and an individualist not collectivist culture (Pollitt and Bouckaert2004,39–64).With the prime minister able to use the Crown’s residual powers to manage the civil service through Orders in Council,it was relatively easy to adapt the civil service towards new needs.Even so, announcements of reform were not always followed by action.
Historical Perspectives on British Civil Service Reform
Using the recommendations of government inquiries and parliament as a proxy for ‘present needs and modern views’we can compare them with their outcomes to show the hesitant way in which the‘modern pattern emerges’;the civil service has never been very willing to modernise itself(Gladden1967,18–40;the analysis below draws too on Hennessy1990;Drewry and Butcher1991;Pyper1995; Theakston1995;Burnham and Pyper2008).
The Northcote–Trevelyan Report(Northcote and Trevelyan1854)was the moder-nising project of the19th century;and its recommendations remain the foundation of the‘Whitehall model’.It proposed replacing corrupt patronage with the recruit-ment of young people to a uni?ed service of two classes(intellectual,mechanical), through an open‘literary examination’run by an independent authority.The Civil Service Commission was set up in1855to examine and certify recruits as?t for service—yet many departments still appointed favoured candidates.
The Commons in1860reaf?rmed its support for open competition;it was intro-duced10years later,though with temporary exemption for the Home Of?ce and Foreign Of?ce.The same Order in Council empowered the Treasury to introduce department-wide grades,but by1874neither they nor the two-class structure had materialised.The proposal of the Playfair Committee(1874–75)for lower-division of?cials to be recruited for service in any department was implemented immedi-ately:the proposals for senior of?cials,including‘outsider’appointments where internal expertise was lacking,were not.The Ridley Commission(1886–90)rec-ommended a single grade structure for senior administrators,but the higher pay at the Home and Foreign Of?ces held back implementation until1919.At lower levels,uni?ed recruitment and grading were made dif?cult by the growth of new functions.The labour exchanges(‘job centres’)and national insurance commissions (welfare provisions,delivered by the voluntary sector)required mature staff,who were recruited by competitive interview(Gladden1967,23).The MacDonnell Commission(1912–15)on recruitment did not respond to the new conditions (Hennessy1990,56).It criticised the use of outsiders on the insurance commis-?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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sions,and advised that‘professionals’be recruited in separate open competitions. However,its deliberations were overtaken by the1914–18war,during which the civil service relied on temporary recruits of all ages from all sectors.
After the war,the Haldane Committee on the Machinery of Government(1917–18),Bradbury Committee on the civil service(1918–19)and parliament concurred on the need for Treasury-led uni?cation.Orders in Council and Treasury circulars 1919–20created general‘clerical’,‘executive’and‘administrative’classes;gave the Treasury responsibility for civil service management;and transferred responsibility for senior appointments to the prime minister,advised by the Treasury Permanent Secretary,who was made Head of the Civil Service.Under Warren Fisher,its head 1919–39,the civil service became a less politicised,virtually self-managing service. Fisher said he used interdepartmental transfers to produce‘general managers’,not ‘experts’(Hennessy1990,75);he thereby created a cohesive but inbred elite. Although the1939–45war brought in outsiders,it was generally back to‘business as usual’in1945(Theakston1995,56–82)and a‘missed opportunity’(Hennessy 1990,120–168).Yet there were reforms:the Robertson inquiry of1941led to the merging of the different corps linked to the Foreign Of?ce—though also a separa-tion from the Home Civil Service;and the Barlow report of1943enabled the scienti?c specialisms to unite,though not with the‘general’classes.Personnel policy became more progressive:the ban on married women was lifted in1946; equal pay was conceded in1952and implemented from1955;‘adults’were admit-ted to clerical grades from1955,and the examinations for clerical and executive grades were replaced with educational quali?cations followed by interview.
In1946top of?cials rejected the idea of an inquiry into their capacity to handle the new welfare and industrial functions(Theakston1995,65–67).Yet highly placed wartime‘temporaries’were already warning of the‘considerable need for change’, since the functions were no longer regulatory but‘more those of management’(Lord Franks,in Hennessy1990,124).Parliamentary criticism of Treasury?nancial management led to the Plowden Report of1961,which advised that administrative grades receive training in economics and management.Following defence procure-ment scandals,and with the Labour opposition(led by a wartime government economist,Harold Wilson)proposing radical reform,the Conservative government responded with a training scheme for administrative class recruits,and a few posts for‘late entrants’with managerial experience.Wilson’s?rst government created career structures for economists(lacking in many departments)and information of?cers.His second,urged on by parliament,set up in1966under Lord Fulton, another wartime temporary,remains the last major inquiry on the civil service. The Fulton Committee(1968)favoured a service that was better trained and managed,integrated generalists and specialists and was connected to the commu-nity.Its recommendation that administrative class of?cials specialise in economic and?nancial administration,or in social administration,and that specialists be trained in management,was addressed with a new Civil Service College.However administrative civil servants did not value the college,whose status grew only in the 1990s,when the Conservatives emphasised management and performance,and again from2004,when Labour pressed of?cials to acquire‘Professional Skills for Government’.In1972the top three administrative grades(only)were opened to ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES201 specialists:further extension took place under the Thatcher government in the mid-1980s.Fulton wanted the senior service to be in touch with other sectors through late entry,short-term contracts,secondments and outward movements. There were few secondments to business until the1990s,when the Major govern-ment set targets,and opened up competition for top posts,forcing civil servants to take their own experience record more seriously.
Fulton considered that ef?ciency would be increased by dividing departments into units accounting for their spending against de?ned objectives.Little happened until Thatcher’s Financial Management Initiative of1982,strongly supported by parlia-ment,required departments to adopt such systems(but see Public Accounts Com-mittee2008for elements outstanding).The Fulton committee hoped the government would‘hive off’executive activities to non-departmental agencies: some were set up by the management-minded Heath government of the early 1970s,but the idea was implemented more extensively under Thatcher as execu-tive agencies.Opposition to agency of?cials accounting directly to parliament(part of the case for‘decline’)was reduced by a procedure which recognised that of?cials are often best placed to provide information,while ministers retained political responsibility.Fulton also suggested that ministers should be able to draw on advice from a departmental policy planning unit,and from temporary specialist advisers. Forward planning remains of limited interest in Whitehall(the Transport Plan 2000–10lasted two years);however Wilson and most subsequent prime ministers established small policy units in Number10(Heath created instead the Cabinet’s Central Policy Review Staff)and the phenomenon of the‘temporary civil servant’making a party-political input into policy-making became generally accepted by Whitehall,if not by some traditionalists,and then by the Constitutional Reform Act in2010.
The Fulton Report spawned supplementary inquiries into secrecy in policy-making and on administrative class(‘fast stream’)recruitment.The Franks Committee (1971–72)advised limiting the scope of the Of?cial Secrets Act1911;however the law was not reformed until1989,by which time reformers’demands had broad-ened to‘open government’and‘freedom of information’—in part to improve the quality of policy-making.The Major government’s1994Code of Practice automati-cally put more information into the public domain,but the1997Labour govern-ment had to overcome considerable departmental opposition before its Freedom of Information Act of2000was implemented in2005(Burnham and Pyper2008, 187).Successive inquiries on‘fast stream’recruitment failed to satisfy parliament, and the critique expanded from possible Oxbridge bias to the independence of the Civil Service Commission and the barriers facing women and other social groups. Civil Service Commissioners were replaced partly and then wholly in1991by outside human resources experts(more evidence of decline for some analysts). Under pressure from the Commission for Racial Equality and Modernising Govern-ment(Cabinet Of?ce1999a,59–60),procedures were changed to reduce cultural discrimination and increase diversity(Cabinet Of?ce1999b).Equality programmes introduced into the civil service from1984for women,and from the early1990s for people from ethnic minorities or with disabilities,helped answer the Fulton Com-mittee’s demand for more‘contact between the Service and the community it is there to serve’.Civil service leaders eventually asserted that the civil service needed ?2010The Authors.British Journal of Politics and International Relations?2010Political Studies Association
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202ROBERT PYPER,JUNE BURNHAM ‘to re?ect society’in order‘to be effective in delivering services in an increasingly personalised way’(Cabinet Of?ce2008,24).
The changes inaugurated by Margaret Thatcher seemed more intense because they included Fulton reforms,long delayed by top of?cials and trade unions and/or not actively pursued by ministers overwhelmed by economic problems(Theakston 1995,106–114).The Thatcher reforms were underpinned by New Right theories on the bureaucracy,not by the Fabian assumptions of Fulton,and they were not proclaimed as‘modernisation’,even if the strategies resembled other governments’modernisation programmes.Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert(2004, 99–100)prefer the term‘marketiser’for Britain,reserving the term‘modernisers’for countries in which Weberian bureaucracies were being updated,not rejected. Nevertheless,‘market’aspects of the Thatcher reforms(contracting out,competi-tion with outsiders for posts,quanti?ed performance outcomes)were important stimuli to the self-modernisation of the civil service.
Furthermore,there was a modernising character to the market mechanisms added by John Major’s Citizen’s Charter of1991(setting service quality standards of direct concern to users),and stimulated by Major’s dislike of the way‘anonymous of?-cialdom’treated ordinary people(Seldon and Baston1997,188).User-oriented reforms responded to societal changes,such as the decline in deference(Pollitt and Bouckaert2004,293),which ministers recognised in putting more pressure on the Bene?ts Agency over quick turnaround time for clients than over accuracy of assessment(James2003,102–103).The Charter was implemented across minis-tries,although‘possibly not since the Wilson government...had there been so much resistance...to a Prime Minister’s wishes’(Seldon and Baston1997,193). Citizens’Charter-style performance standards were continued by the New Labour government,adding to the‘quality police’enumerated by Hood et al.(1999). Modernising Government and Modern Public Services challenged departments further by promising users‘joined-up government’between service deliverers of all types,and by introducing Public Service Agreements—performance standards for departments with the performance in question likely to involve steering their‘partners’in the public or private sector(that is,‘governance’).For Moran(2003,62–64,125–129) the Thatcher-Major-Blair project was modernism,even hyper-modernism,replac-ing the‘club government’in Whitehall with formal regulatory powers:the tacit knowledge of the policy-making elite of?cial based on experience of the Whitehall world has been downgraded in favour of explicit knowledge.Today’s senior civil servant is expected to use managerial skills to produce measured,published outputs from a?nely regulated and controlled workforce.
From the historical perspective the British civil service is no longer corrupt and politicised but more directly accountable,more open and interconnected with society and its demands.The record shows a progressive but often delayed adop-tion of reforms that help the service match up to‘modern needs and views’as de?ned by government and parliament.International comparisons show it to be among those civil services that have modernised most in the past two decades, but not all civil services have needed or been required to modernise in this particular way.
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THE BRITISH CIVIL SERVICE:PERSPECTIVES203
Conclusion
We have examined the content and meaning of contrasting perspectives on the British civil service emanating from the schools of thought and practice that have coalesced around the concepts of‘decline’and‘modernisation’.In each case,we have found that the differing perspectives suffer from signi?cant limitations,most obviously a lack of historical and comparative context and a failure to analyse adequately the consequences of the civil service’s constitutional and organisational situation within the British polity.On balance,the British civil service has shown a capacity for(sometimes delayed and partial)progressive modernisation during its long history,and the‘decline’theses seem to us to overstate the nature and scale of the dif?culties that are said to have led this core institution of the British system of government into an apparently irreversible spiral of deterioration.
About the Authors
Robert Pyper,Head of Department of Social Sciences,Professor of Government and Public Policy, School of Law and Social Sciences,Glasgow Caledonian University,Glasgow G4OBA,UK,email: R.Pyper@https://www.doczj.com/doc/2c17183515.html,
June Burnham,6Hertford Road,Digswell,Welwyn,Herts AL60DE,UK,email:j.burnham@ https://www.doczj.com/doc/2c17183515.html,
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