Richard A. Chapman

The Role of the Civil Service: A Traditional View in a Period of Change

From 1854 until the late 1960s the civil service developed greater uniformity and tighter central control. In the 1980s, that process was deliberately reversed, with the establishment of executive agencies and the delegation from the centre of many management responsibilities. The question of standards of conduct was not much considered when those changes were made: the need for efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of resources was given pre-eminent place. (Nolan, 1995, p. 57).

Concepts and Issues in Public Sector Reform: the Experience of the United Kingdom in the 1980s

processes of public sector organisations but, more importantly, major changes in the administrative culture and in the expectations of politicians and citizens for the public sector. This period of reform had its origins in the election, in 1979, of a Conservative Government led by Mrs Margaret Thatcher, a very determined, radical, and politically shrewd Prime Minister, who held her position for more consecutive years than any previous British Prime Minister of the twentieth century. However, her achievements were not the result of her personality and leadership qualities alone. Her Government had a good working majority in the House of Commons at a time when the Opposition was often disunited and/or preoccupied with its

Editorial New arrangements for recruitment to the British Civil Service: cause for concern

The 1990-91 Report of the Civil Service Commissioners deserves more attention than annual reports generally receive. It not only reports on the activities of the Commission for the period from 1 January 1990 to 31 March 1991, it also reports on the important changes in the Commission as a result of the creation of the Recruitment and Assessment Services Agency (RAS), set up as a result of the Next Steps initiative, and in addition it provides details of new arrangements and responsibilities given legal form in the Civil Service Order in Council 1991 and

The Origins of the Joint University Council and the Background to Public Policy and Administration An Interpretation

This article is the result of research into public records in The National Archives; the Royal Institute of Public Administration archives in the University of Birmingham; the Joint University Council archives in the University of Warwick; and (with the kind assistance of Adrian Allan, Archivist, University of Liverpool) the papers of Professor Lord Simey of Toxteth. Its main purpose is to contribute to the history of the applied social sciences through tracing the background and development of Public Policy and Administration. Constraints of length and problems associated with the largely uncatalogued archives of the Joint University Council and the incomplete records of the Royal Institute of Public Administration prevent a full and comprehensive history of the topics covered, so it has to be selective (hence ‘an interpretation’), and the intention therefore has been to focus on the prehistory and history of influences contributing to the development of the Joint University Council, its Public Administration Committee and, especially, the journal Public Policy and Administration.

Civil Service Recruitment: Fairness or preferential advantage?

Recently some of my students reported serious unhappiness about their treatment in the Qualifying Tests (QTs) for entry to the civil service as administration trainees. This led me to inquire further into the nature of their complaints and to compare their experience with some of the details published in the latest (19921993) Civil Service Commissioners’ Report. The purposes of this short article are therefore to report what happened to my students, consider some of the details in the latest Report that may appear most significant to readers of Public Policy and Administration, and reflect on some of the continuing problems. facing the Civil Service Commissioners.

Learning About Oneself from the Public Records: Editing the Report of a Research Project for the Fulton Committee

This article combines an academic study of official documents, only recently available, with the recollections and reflections of a key player in the subject studied. It therefore has a rare (perhaps unique?) approach. It reveals details of civil service attitudes towards research in the social sciences at the time of the Fulton Committee on the Civil Service (1966-68) – important for understanding British public administration not only in the 1960s but also up to the present time. It also raises significant questions about the role(s) of advisers to committees and commissions and, in particular, the work of secretaries to such bodies.

From Croquet Mallets to Flamingoes: perspectives on change: The Frank Stacey Lecture, delivered in the University of Northumbria on Monday 2 September, during the 26th Annual PAC Conference on Constitutional Change

* Richard A. Chapman was Professor of Politics, University of Durham until 30 September 1996. He is now Emeritus Professor and Honorary Research Fellow in Durham University Business School. He was Chairman of the Public Administration Committee from 1978 to 1981 and Chairman of the Joint University Council from 1983 to 1986. It is a great privilege and pleasure for me to be giving this lecture because, when Frank Stacey died, he was Chairman of the Public Administration Committee and I was his Vice-Chairman. I remember the shock when I learned of his death, soon after the 1977 PAC Conference, and the sadness I felt in recalling our

Reviews : Does Performance Pay Motivate? A Study of Inland Revenue Staff, A Report for the Inland Revenue Staff Federation by Dr R. Richardson and Dr D. Marsden, ISRF, 1991, £15.00, 52pp

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in reply to a Parliamentary Question (24. vii.91), said that performance related pay is to be an important means of improving the quality of public services and therefore of contributing to the Citizens’ Charter Programme. He said the Government wants to introduce more flexible pay regimes for the Civil Service, to reward good performance and penalise bad. However, this seems to be a commitment based on an untested hypothesis. Like many other aspects of public sector management, no proper research appears to have been done on performance related pay before the Government announced its commitment to it. This Report by Ray Richardson and David Marsden, of the Industrial Relations Department of the London School of Economics, should therefore be particularly welcomed for two reasons. It is a valuable addition to the literature on personnel management in the British civil

HEAD OF THE CIVIL SERVICE: A STUDY OF SIR WARREN FISHER by Eunan O'Halpin. Routledge, 1989, £35.00

light on its operation. As in so many respects, Scotland seems to have largely followed the English pattern at a distance of some decades. Apart from . educational administration in Scotland, there appears to be little evidence conforming to the ’conventional wisdom’ in the period prior to the First World War. But, arguably, neither was there the ’institutionalisation’ of relations which Bellamy found in England. The work is thoroughly researched using a wide range of primary and secondary papers throughout. A striking feature of the bibliography is the apparent lack of unpublished theses on related subject-matter. Though Bellamy has provided a notable contribution much more could be written and should be researched on this subject, especially in light of the relevance to contemporary issues. Though the writing style could have been improved in places, it is an important contribution to the study of public administration.