How to Be a Civil Servant
How to Be a Civil Servant

Author: Martin Stanley

Publisher: Biteback Publishing

Published: 2016-04-19

Total Pages: 123

ISBN-13: 1785900161

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Although it is seldom recognised as such by the public, the civil service is a profession like any other. The UK civil service employs 400,000 people across the country, with over 20,000 students and graduates applying to enter every year through its fast-stream competition alone. Martin Stanley's seminal How to Be a Civil Servant was the first guidebook to the British civil service ever published. It remains the only comprehensive guide on how civil servants should effectively carry out their duties, hone their communication skills and respond to professional, ethical and technical issues relevant to the job. It addresses such questions as: How do you establish yourself with your minister as a trusted adviser? How should you feed the media so they don’t feed on you? What’s the best way to deal with potential conflicts of interest? This fully updated new edition provides the latest advice, and is a must-read for newly appointed civil servants and for those looking to enter the profession – not to mention students, academics, journalists, politicians and anyone with an interest in the inner workings of the British government.

The Official History of the British Civil Service
The Official History of the British Civil Service

Author: Rodney Lowe

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-01-25

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 1136830146

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This first volume of the Official History of the UK Civil Service covers its evolution from the Northcote-Trevelyan Report of 1854 to the first years of Mrs Thatcher’s government in 1981. Despite current concerns with good governance and policy delivery, little serious attention has been paid to the institution vital to both: the Civil Service. This Official History is designed to remedy this by placing present problems in historical context and by providing a helpful structure in which others, and particularly former officials, may contribute to the debate. Starting with the seminal 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, it covers the ‘lost opportunity’ of the 1940s when the Service failed to adapt the needs of ‘big government’ as advocated by Beveridge and Keynes. It then examines, in greater detail, the belated attempts at modernisation in the 1960s, the Service’s vilification in the 1970s and the final destruction of the ‘old order’ during the first years of Mrs Thatcher’s government. Particular light is shed on the origins of such current concerns as the role of special advisers the need for a Prime Minister’s Department the evolution of Parliamentary Select Committees to resolve the potential tension between bureaucracy and Parliamentary democracy. This Official History is based on extensive research into both recently released and unreleased papers as well as interviews with leading participants. It has important lessons to offer all those, both inside and outside the UK, seeking to improve the quality of democratic government. This book will be of great interest to all students of British history, British government and politics, and of public administration in general.

The Oxford Handbook of Scottish Politics
The Oxford Handbook of Scottish Politics

Author: Michael Keating

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-08-21

Total Pages: 767

ISBN-13: 0192558706

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The Handbook of Scottish Politics provides a detailed overview of politics in Scotland, looking at areas such as elections and electoral behaviour, public policy, political parties, and Scotland's relationship with the EU and the wider world. The contributors to this volume are some of the leading experts on politics in Scotland.

The Power of Civil Servants
The Power of Civil Servants

Author: Peter Hennessy

Publisher: Haus Publishing

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 71

ISBN-13: 1912208067

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Throughout Britain, Civil Servants are exposed to public scrutiny today in unprecedented ways. What does it mean that the political neutrality of the Civil Service has only been enshrined in law since 2010, nearly 150 years after it was first proposed? Why is it so important for politicians to trust Civil Servants (and what difficulties arise when they do not)? Coauthored by former First Civil Service Commissioner David Normington and historian Peter Hennessy, The Power of Whitehall provides answers through rich observations about the nature of the British Civil Service, its values and effectiveness, and how it should continue to adapt to a changing world.

The Blunders of Our Governments
The Blunders of Our Governments

Author: Anthony King

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2014-09-04

Total Pages: 668

ISBN-13: 1780746180

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With unrivalled political savvy and a keen sense of irony, distinguished political scientists Anthony King and Ivor Crewe open our eyes to the worst government horror stories and explain why the British political system is quite so prone to appalling mistakes.

The Ideal of Public Service
The Ideal of Public Service

Author: Barry O'Toole

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-09-27

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 1135770999

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A close examination of the ethics of higher civil servants in Britain and how they have been undermined by recent developments in public administration. Barry O'Toole tackles key questions such as: how should public servants behave? how should they be encouraged to think ethically? how should they be motivated to do so? Focusing on the role of public service, public duty and the public interest in the twenty-first century, O’Toole answers these important questions and looks at the emergence of ‘new public management’, the increasingly important role of 'special advisers' and the decline of the public service ethos under New Labour. The Ideal of Public Service explores some of the key contributions to the development of ideas about public service in the context of British central administration and provides a discussion of recent trends in administrative practice in the UK. Combining political theory and an analysis of the history and development of the civil service, this timely book will be of strong interest to those researching British Politics, Governance and Public Policy.

Decentralizing The Civil Service
Decentralizing The Civil Service

Author: R.A. W. Rhodes

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)

Published: 2003-02-16

Total Pages: 203

ISBN-13: 0335227562

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This book is concerned with the civil services of the United Kingdom, examining their characteristics and trends since 1970. It provides a map of the British civil service beyond Whitehall, giving an individual country-by-country analysis of the civil services of the UK. It considers the implications of the changing nature of the civil services for our understanding of British governance, especially in the context of the public sector management reforms of the 1980s and 1990s and the impact of constitutional change (chiefly devolution) since 1998. Given that devolution has been characterized as a process rather than an event, the book brings to bear evidence of how existing longstanding differences within some parts of British public administration may come to be replicated elsewhere in the UK. The authors also explore two controversial propositions. First they ask whether Britain is moving from the unitory, strong executive of the 'Westminster model' to a 'differentiated polity' characterized by institutional fragmentation. Second, they consider whether an unintended consequence of recent changes is a 'hollowing out of the state'. Is the British executive losing functions downwards to devolved governments and special-purpose bodies and outwards to regional offices and agencies with a resulting loss of central capacity? Substantial empirical data (both quantitative and qualitative) has been amassed here in order to give answers to these questions. Decentralizing the Civil Service assesses the UK's changing civil services in the wake of two decades of public sector management reforms and New Labour's constitutional reform programme, most notably devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This assessment has significant implications for how we view governance in the UK.