Kevin Theakston

Comparative Biography and Leadership in Whitehall

The article discusses (1) the uses, advantages and drawbacks of the biographical approach in the study of public administration and (2) the application of theories of leadership to senior British civil servants. The argument is advanced that biographical case studies - looking at the personal qualities, careers and achievements of top mandarins - can illuminate the exercise of leadership in Whitehall and the changing role and culture of the civil service.

New Labour, New Whitehall?

This paper reviews the Labour Partys reaction to developments in the civil service in the 1980s and 1990s under the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, and discusses Labours own plans for Whitehall and the experience of the first five to six months of the new Blair government. It focuses on relations between Labour ministers and the mandarins (including problems of the ‘transition’), the partys plans for freedom of information and better accountability, and Labour thinking on agencies, ‘charterism’, market-testing and contracting-out. The paper concludes that Labour cannot afford to halt the ‘management revolution’.

Richard Crossman The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister

Richard Crossmans Diaries of a Cabinet Minister (published in three volumes, 1975-77) give a detailed and vivid account of the life of a Cabinet minister and the inner workings of the Whitehall machine and of Harold Wilsons Labour government in the 1960s - coloured, however, by Crossmans own strong personality and opinions. Controversially blowing away conventions of Cabinet secrecy, the diaries paved the way for later moves towards more openness about the process of government. The article shows how the evidence of the diaries served to undermine the simplistic notions of ‘prime ministerial government’ propagated by Crossman and others. Crossmans ambition to write ‘a new Bagehot’ - a classic, landmark and defining book about the British political system - was never fulfilled. Ultimately, Crossmans legacy is that of a gadfly critic and a maverick insider, not a major constitutional thinker.

Continuity, Change and Crisis: the Civil Service Since 1945

This paper reviews developments in the British civil service between 1945 and the mid-1990s, highlighting areas of continuity as well as the significant changes there have been. Post-war reform initiatives are assessed, and the argument is advanced that the future of the civil service is now more uncertain than ever before.

Evaluating British prime ministerial performance: David Cameron’s premiership in political time

This article contributes to the developing literature on prime ministerial performance in the United Kingdom by applying a critical reading of Stephen Skowronek’s account of leadership in ‘political time’ to evaluate David Cameron’s premiership. This, we propose, better understands the inter-relationship of structure and agency in prime ministerial performance than existing frameworks, particularly those based on Greenstein’s and Bulpitt’s approaches. We identify Cameron as a disjunctive prime minister, but find it necessary significantly to develop the model of disjunctive leadership beyond that offered by Skowronek. We identify the warrants to authority, strategies and dilemmas associated with disjunctive leadership in the United Kingdom. We argue that Cameron was relatively skilful in meeting many of the challenges confronting an affiliated leader of a vulnerable regime. However, his second term exposed deep fractures in the regime, which proved beyond Cameron’s skills as a disjunctive leader.

Labour, Thatcher and the Future of the Civil Service

This article is primarily concerned with developments in the civil service since 1979 and the reaction to them of the Labour Party, placing the discussion in the context of the experience of the 1974- 79 Labour government and the long-term evolution of Labour Party attitudes towards the bureaucracy and the machinery of government. Three key issues are examined: the debate about the alleged politicisation of the civil service under Mrs Thatcher and the need to strengthen the political element in government in relation to the bureaucratic; official secrecy and the campaign for freedom of information reform; civil service efficiency and the Thatcher governments management reforms. Looking ahead, the article also tries to preview the possible impact of an incoming Labour government on the Whitehall machine.

Evelyn Sharp (1903–85)

Evelyn Sharp was a maker of civil service history: a pioneering woman in Whitehalls top ranks as permanent secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government 1955–66. The publication of the Crossman Diaries in 1975 gave us a vivid but incomplete picture of ‘the Dame’, as she was known to all who dealt with her. In this article, Kevin Theakston has pieced together the story of her whole 40‐year‐long career in the civil service (which she joined in 1926, only the second year in which the examination for the administrative class was open to women). She was widely recognised as one of the most formidable civil servants of her day, her unique specialist knowledge of the field of local government, housing and planning (in which she spent virtually her whole career), and her forthright manner and tough‐minded approach marking her out. Ministers from both main parties ‐ Hugh Dalton, Harold Macmillan, Enoch Powell, Charles Hill, and even Richard Crossman himself ‐ testified to her power and brilliance. All...

‘Deputy Prime Minister’ Under Heath

The dominant Whitehall figure during the Heath administration, Armstrong’s role developed into something akin to a Chief of Staff or Permanent Secretary to the Prime Minister. Controversially, he became, for a civil servant, unusually closely personally identified with Heath’s policies. Put in charge of the major industrial policy initiative (the ‘U-turn’) of 1972, Armstrong was also at the centre of the government’s incomes policy strategy and machinery, 1972–74, including the struggle with the National Union of Mineworkers that led to the fall of the government.

Climbing the Whitehall Ladder

Talent-spotted early on, Armstrong soon moved up through key posts on the inside track at the centre of government in the classic ‘mandarin’ model of the ‘generalist’ policy-adviser and coordinator rather than as an executive manager. He worked on domestic security coordination in the war and as private secretary to the Cabinet Secretary, Edward Bridges, who became a powerful patron and mentor. As principal private secretary to three Labour and Conservative Chancellors of the Exchequer (1949–53), he gained invaluable experience of, and showed skill in, top-level economic policy-making, working the machinery of government, crisis-management, and the interface of politics and policy. Senior posts in the Treasury in the 1950s brought experience of overseas and domestic finance, sterling and the balance of payments, and the budget.

The Midland Bank Years

Retiring from the civil service a few months after the defeat of the Heath government, Armstrong’s move to be chairman of Midland Bank raised questions about the rules governing former civil servants’ business appointments.