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His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service is the permanent
bureaucracy The term bureaucracy () refers to a body of non-elected governing officials as well as to an administrative policy-making group. Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments staffed with non-elected offi ...
or
secretariat Secretariat may refer to: * Secretariat (administrative office) * Secretariat (horse) Secretariat (March 30, 1970 – October 4, 1989), also known as Big Red, was a champion American thoroughbred horse racing, racehorse who is the ninth winne ...
of Crown employees that supports
His Majesty's Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...
, which is led by a
cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...
of ministers chosen by the
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern p ...
, as well as two of the three devolved administrations: the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, but not the
Northern Ireland Executive The Northern Ireland Executive is the devolved government of Northern Ireland, an administrative branch of the legislature – the Northern Ireland Assembly. It is answerable to the assembly and was initially established according to the term ...
. As in other states that employ the Westminster political system, His Majesty's Home Civil Service forms an inseparable part of the
British government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...
. The executive decisions of government ministers are implemented by HM Civil Service. Civil servants are employees of the
Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
and not of the
British parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...
. Civil servants also have some traditional and
statutory A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by l ...
responsibilities which to some extent protect them from being used for the political advantage of the party in power. Senior civil servants may be called to account to Parliament. In general use, the term ''civil servant'' in the United Kingdom does not include all public sector employees; although there is no fixed legal definition, the term is usually defined as a "servant of the Crown working in a civil capacity who is not the holder of a political (or judicial) office; the holder of certain other offices in respect of whose tenure of office special provision has been made; ra servant of the Crown in a personal capacity paid from the
Civil List A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government, typically for service to the state or as honorary pensions. It is a term especially associated with the United Kingdom and its former colonies of Canada, India, New Zea ...
".Bradley and Ewing, p.272 As such, the civil service does not include government ministers (who are politically appointed), members of the
British Armed Forces The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, su ...
, the police, officers of local government authorities or
quangos A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi-NGO", where NG ...
of the Houses of Parliament, employees of the National Health Service (NHS), or staff of the Royal Household. As at the end of March 2021 there were 484,880 civil servants in the Home Civil Service, an increase of 6.23 per cent on the previous year. There are two other administratively separate civil services in the United Kingdom. One is for Northern Ireland (the
Northern Ireland Civil Service The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS; ga, Státseirbhís Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''Norlin Airlann Cïvil Sarvice'') is the permanent bureaucracy of employees that supports the Northern Ireland Executive, the devolved governmen ...
); the other is the
foreign service Diplomatic service is the body of diplomats and foreign policy officers maintained by the government of a country to communicate with the governments of other countries. Diplomatic personnel obtains diplomatic immunity when they are accredited to o ...
( His Majesty's Diplomatic Service). The heads of these services are members of the Permanent Secretaries Management Group.


History


Establishment

The Offices of State grew in England, and later the United Kingdom. Initially, they were little more than
secretariat Secretariat may refer to: * Secretariat (administrative office) * Secretariat (horse) Secretariat (March 30, 1970 – October 4, 1989), also known as Big Red, was a champion American thoroughbred horse racing, racehorse who is the ninth winne ...
s for their leaders, who held positions at court. They were chosen by the king on the advice of a patron, and typically replaced when their patron lost influence. In the 18th century, in response to the growth of the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
and economic changes, institutions such as the Office of Works and the
Navy Board The Navy Board (formerly known as the Council of the Marine or Council of the Marine Causes) was the commission responsible for the day-to-day civil administration of the Royal Navy between 1546 and 1832. The board was headquartered within the ...
grew large. Each had its own system and staff were appointed by purchase or patronage. By the 19th century, it became increasingly clear that these arrangements were not working. Under Charles Grant, the East India Company established the
East India Company College The East India Company College, or East India College, was an educational establishment situated at Hailey, Hertfordshire, nineteen miles north of London, founded in 1806 to train "writers" (administrators) for the Honourable East India Company ( ...
at Haileybury near London, to train administrators, in 1806. The College was established on recommendation of officials in China who had seen the imperial examination system. In government, a civil service, replacing patronage with examination, similar to the Chinese system, was advocated a number of times over the next several decades.
William Ewart Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...
, in 1850, an opposition member, sought a more efficient system based on expertise rather than favouritism. The East India Company provided a model for
Stafford Northcote Stafford Henry Northcote, 1st Earl of Iddesleigh (27 October 1818 – 12 January 1887), known as Sir Stafford Northcote, Bt from 1851 to 1885, was a British Conservative politician. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1874 and 1 ...
, private Secretary to Gladstone who, with Charles Trevelyan, drafted the key report in 1854. The
Northcote–Trevelyan Report The Northcote-Trevelyan Report was a document prepared by Stafford H. Northcote (later to be Chancellor of the Exchequer) and C.E. Trevelyan (then Permanent Secretary at the Treasury) about the British Civil Service. Commissioned in 1853 and pu ...
, recommended a permanent, unified, politically neutral civil service, with appointments made on merit, and a clear division between staff responsible for routine ("mechanical") and those engaged in policy formulation and implementation ("administrative") work. The report was not implemented, but it came as the bureaucratic chaos in the
Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
demonstrated that the military was as backward as the civil service. A
Civil Service Commission A civil service commission is a government agency that is constituted by legislature to regulate the employment and working conditions of civil servants, oversee hiring and promotions, and promote the values of the public service. Its role is rough ...
was set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage as Parliament passed an Act "to relieve the East India Company from the obligation to maintain the College at Haileybury". Prime Minister Gladstone took the decisive step in 1870 with his
Order in Council An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council ('' K ...
to implement the Northcote-Trevelyan proposals. This system was broadly endorsed by Commissions chaired by Playfair (1874), Ridley (1886), MacDonnell (1914), Tomlin (1931) and Priestley (1955). The Northcote–Trevelyan model remained essentially stable for a hundred years. This was attributed to its success in removing corruption, delivering public services, even under stress of war, and responding effectively to political change. Patrick Diamond argues: :The Northcote-Trevelyan model was characterised by a hierarchical mode of Weberian bureaucracy; neutral, permanent and anonymous officials motivated by the public interest; and a willingness to administer policies ultimately determined by ministers. This bequeathed a set of theories, institutions and practices to subsequent generations of administrators in the central state. The Irish Civil Service was separated from the British civil service. The Acts of Union 1800 abolished the Parliament of Ireland, the
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the Kin ...
was retained in formal charge of the Irish executive based at Dublin Castle. The
Irish Office Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe *** Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent u ...
in Whitehall liaised with Dublin Castle. Some British departments' area of operation extended to Ireland, while in other fields the Dublin department was separate from the Whitehall equivalent.


Lord Fulton's committee report

Following the Second World War demands for change grew again. There was a concern (illustrated in
C. P. Snow Charles Percy Snow, Baron Snow, (15 October 1905 – 1 July 1980) was an English novelist and physical chemist who also served in several important positions in the British Civil Service and briefly in the UK government.''The Columbia Encyclop ...
's '' Strangers and Brothers'' series of novels) that technical and scientific expertise was mushrooming, to a point at which the "good all-rounder" culture of the administrative civil servant with a classics or other arts degree could no longer properly engage with it: as late as 1963, for example, the Treasury had just 19 trained economists. The times were, moreover, ones of keen respect for technocracy, with the mass mobilisation of war having worked effectively, and the French National Plan apparently delivering economic success. And there was also a feeling which would not go away, following the war and the radical social reforms of the 1945 Labour government, that the so-called " mandarins" of the higher civil service were too remote from the people. Indeed, between 1948 and 1963 only three per cent of the recruits to the administrative class came from the working classes, and in 1966 more than half of the administrators at undersecretary level and above had been privately educated. Lord Fulton's committee reported in 1968. He found that administrators were not professional enough, and in particular lacked management skills; that the position of technical and scientific experts needed to be rationalised and enhanced; and that the service was indeed too remote. His 158 recommendations included the introduction of a unified grading system for all categories of staff, a Civil Service College and a central policy planning unit. He also said that control of the service should be taken from the Treasury, and given to a new Department, and that the "fast stream" recruitment process for accessing the upper echelons should be made more flexible, to encourage candidates from less privileged backgrounds. The new Department was set up by Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labour Government in 1968 and named the
Civil Service Department In the Government of the United Kingdom, the minister for the Civil Service is responsible for regulations regarding His Majesty's Civil Service, the role of which is to assist the governments of the United Kingdom in formulating and implementin ...
, known as CSD. Wilson himself took on the role of Minister for the Civil Service (which has continued to be a portfolio of the Prime Minister), while the first Minister in Charge of the Civil Service Department was Cabinet Minister Lord Shackleton, also Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal. The first Permanent Secretary was Sir William Armstrong, who moved over from his post as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury. After the 1970 General Election, new Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath appointed Lord Jellicoe in Lord Shackleton's place. Into Heath's Downing Street came the
Central Policy Review Staff The Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), nicknamed the "Think-Tank", was an independent unit within the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom tasked with developing long term strategy and co-ordinating policy across government departments. It was es ...
(CPRS), and they were in particular given charge of a series of Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) studies of policy efficiency and effectiveness. But, whether through lack of political will, or through passive resistance by a mandarinate which the report had suggested were "amateurs", Fulton failed. The Civil Service College equipped generalists with additional skills, but did not turn them into qualified professionals as ENA did in France. Recruits to the fast stream self-selected, with the universities of Oxford and
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge becam ...
still producing a large majority of successful English candidates, since the system continued to favour the tutorial system at Oxbridge while to an extent the Scottish
Ancient universities The ancient universities are British and Irish medieval universities and early modern universities founded before the year 1600. Four of these are located in Scotland, two in England, and one in Ireland. The ancient universities in Britain and I ...
educated a good proportion of recruits from north of the border. The younger mandarins found excuses to avoid managerial jobs in favour of the more prestigious postings. The generalists remained on top, and the specialists on tap.


Margaret Thatcher's government

Margaret Thatcher came to office in 1979 believing in
free market In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ...
s as a better social system in many areas than the state: government should be small but active. Many of her ministers were suspicious of the civil service, in light of public choice research that suggested public servants tend to increase their own power and budgets. She immediately set about reducing the size of the civil service, cutting numbers from 732,000 to 594,000 over her first seven years in office. Derek Rayner, the former chief executive of Marks & Spencer, was appointed as an efficiency expert with the Prime Minister's personal backing; he identified numerous problems with the Civil Service, arguing that only three billion of the eight billion pounds a year spent at that time by the Civil Service consisted of essential services, and that the "mandarins" (senior civil servants) needed to focus on efficiency and management rather than on policy advice. In late 1981 the Prime Minister announced the abolition of the Civil Service Department, transferring power over the Civil Service to the Prime Minister's Office and
Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
. The Priestley Commission principle of pay comparability with the private sector was abandoned in February 1982. Meanwhile, Michael Heseltine was introducing a comprehensive system of corporate and business planning (known as MINIS) first in the
Department of the Environment An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment, ...
and then in the Ministry of Defence. This led to the '' Financial Management Initiative'', launched in September 1982 (''Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Civil Service'' (Cmnd 8616)) as an umbrella for the efficiency scrutiny programme and with a wider focus on corporate planning, efficiency and objective-setting. Progress initially was sluggish, but in due course MINIS-style business planning became standard, and delegated budgets were introduced, so that individual managers were held much more accountable for meeting objectives, and for the first time for the resources they used to do so. Performance-related pay began in December 1984, was built on thereafter, and continues to this day, though the sums involved have always been small compared to the private sector, and the effectiveness of PRP as a genuine motivator has often been questioned. In February 1988
Robin Ibbs Sir John Robin Ibbs, (21 April 1926 – 27 July 2014) was an English business executive, government advisor and Royal Navy officer. He was Chairman of Lloyds Bank from 1993 to 1997 and of Lloyds TSB Group PLC from 1995 to 1997. Life Born in 1926 ...
, who had been recruited from ICI in July 1983 to run the Efficiency Unit (now in No. 10), published his report ''Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps''. This envisaged a new approach to delivery featuring clear targets and personal responsibility. Without any statutory change, the managerial functions of Ministries would be hived off into
Executive Agencies An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Nor ...
, with clear Framework Documents setting out their objectives, and whose
chief executive A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...
s would be made accountable directly (in some cases to Parliament) for performance. Agencies were to, as far as possible, take a commercial approach to their tasks. However, the Government conceded that agency staff would remain civil servants, which diluted the radicalism of the reform. The approach seems somewhat similar to the Swedish model, though no influence from Sweden has ever been acknowledged. The Next Steps Initiative took some years to get off the ground, and progress was patchy. Significant change was achieved, although agencies never really achieved the level of autonomy envisaged at the start. By 5 April 1993, 89 agencies had been established, and contained over 260,000 civil servants, some 49 per cent of the total. The focus on smaller, more accountable, units revived the keenness of Ministerial interest in the perceived efficiencies of the private sector. Already in the late 1980s, some common services once set up to capture economies of scale, such as the
Property Services Agency The Property Services Agency (PSA) was an agency of the United Kingdom government, in existence from 1972 to 1993. Its role was to “provide, manage, maintain, and furnish the property used by the government, including defence establishments, offi ...
and the Crown Suppliers, were being dismantled or sold off. Next, shortly after Thatcher left office, in July 1991, a new programme of market-testing of central government services began, with the White Paper ''Competing for Quality'' (Cm 1730). Five-yearly or three-yearly policy and finance reviews of all agencies and other public bodies were instituted, where the first question to be answered (the "prior options exercise") was why the function should not be abolished or privatised. In November 1991 the private finance initiative was launched, and by November 1994 the Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to it as ‘the funding mechanism of choice for most public sector projects’. In 1995 the decision was taken to privatise the
Chessington Computer Centre Chessington Computer Centre was an organisation based in Chessington that provided administration services to the UK Government. Originally part of central government, it became an executive agency and trading fund of the Cabinet Office on 1 April 1 ...
,
HMSO The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) is the body responsible for the operation of His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) and of other public information services of the United Kingdom. The OPSI is part of the National Archives of the Un ...
, the Occupational Health & Safety Agency and Recruitment & Assessment Services.


The Citizen's Charter

It was believed with the Thatcher reforms that efficiency was improving. But there was still a perception of carelessness and lack of responsiveness in the quality of public services. The government of John Major sought to tackle this with a
Citizen's Charter The Citizen's Charter was a British political initiative launched by the then prime minister, John Major, on 22 July 1991, less than a year into his premiership. Aims It aimed to improve public services in the UK by: *Making administration accou ...
programme. This sought to empower the service user, by setting out rights to standards in each service area, and arrangements for compensation when these were not met. An Office of Public Service and Science was set up in 1992, to see that the Charter policy was implemented across government. By 1998, 42 Charters had been published, and they included services provided by public service industries such as the health service and the railways, as well as by the civil service. The programme was also expanded to apply to other organisations such as local government or housing associations, through a scheme of "Chartermark" awards. The programme was greeted with some derision, and it is true that the compensation sometimes hardly seemed worth the effort of claiming, and that the service standards were rarely set with much consumer input. But the initiative did have a significant effect in changing cultures, and paradoxically the spin-off Chartermark initiative may have had more impact on local organisations uncertain about what standards to aim for, than the parent Citizen's Charter programme itself.


Governance


Minister for the Civil Service

The position of Minister for the Civil Service is not part of the Civil Service as it is a political position which has always been held by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.


Head of the Home Civil Service

The highest ranking civil servant in the country is the Cabinet Secretary. A subsidiary title that was also held by the incumbent was ''Head of the Home Civil Service'' or more recently sometimes styled ''Head of the Civil Service'', who until recently was also the incumbent Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary of the
Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
. However, following the Coalition Government of David Cameron the three posts were split from the single holder. The last person to hold all three positions together was
Gus O'Donnell Augustine Thomas O'Donnell, Baron O'Donnell, (born 1 October 1952) is a former British senior civil servant and economist, who between 2005 and 2011 (under three Prime Ministers) served as the Cabinet Secretary, the highest official in the Bri ...
, Cabinet Secretary, Head of the Home Civil Service and Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary, September 2005 – January 2012. The postholder is responsible for ensuring that the Civil Service is equipped with the skills and capability to meet the everyday challenges it faces and that civil servants work in a fair and decent environment. They also chair the Permanent Secretary Management Group and the Civil Service Steering Board which are the main governing bodies of the Civil Service. It was announced on 11 October 2011 that, following O'Donnell's retirement at the end of 2011, the role of Head of the Home Civil Service would be split from the post of Cabinet Secretary. There will additionally be a new, separate, Permanent Secretary to lead the Cabinet Office. After O'Donnell's retirement,
Jeremy Heywood Jeremy John Heywood, Baron Heywood of Whitehall, (31 December 1961 – 4 November 2018) was a British civil servant who served as Cabinet Secretary to David Cameron and Theresa May from 2012 to 2018 and Head of the Home Civil Service from 201 ...
replaced him as Cabinet Secretary – serving until 24 October 2018 when he retired on health grounds;
Ian Watmore Ian Charles Watmore (born 5 July 1958) is a British management consultant and former senior civil servant under three prime ministers, serving from October 2016 as the First Civil Service Commissioner. Early life and business career Born in Cr ...
as Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary; and lastly,
Bob Kerslake Robert Walter Kerslake, Baron Kerslake, (born 28 February 1955) is a British retired senior civil servant. He was the Head of the Home Civil Service, after the retirement of the former holder, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell on 31 Dece ...
as Head of the Home Civil Service. In July 2014 it was announced that Kerslake would step down and Heywood would take the title of Head of the HCS while
John Manzoni Sir John Alexander Manzoni (born 1960) is a British senior civil servant and business executive, who served as chief executive of the civil service and the Cabinet Office Permanent Secretary from 2014 to 2020. Early life and education Manzoni ...
would be Chief Executive of the Civil Service. From 24 October 2018 to 4 November 2018, the office of Head of the Home Civil Service was vacant, as Heywood resigned on health grounds. Following Heywood's death,
Mark Sedwill Mark Philip Sedwill, Baron Sedwill, (born 21 October 1964) is a British diplomat and senior civil servant who served as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service to Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson from 2018 to 2020. H ...
was given the additional Civil Service portfolio.


Permanent Secretaries Management Group (PSMG)

The PSMG considers issues of strategic importance to the Civil Service as a whole, as well as providing corporate leadership where a single position is required across all government departments. It is chaired by the Head of the Home Civil Service and consists of all first permanent secretaries and other selected permanent secretaries and directors general. This includes the Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and the Head of the Diplomatic Service.


Civil Service Steering Board (CSSB)

The CSSB was established in 2007 and meets monthly. Its role is to enhance the performance and reputation of the Civil Service by focusing on specific areas delegated to it by PSMG. The CSSB is chaired by the Head of the Home Civil Service.


Civil Service Commissioners

The Civil Service Commissioners are not civil servants and are independent of Ministers, they are appointed directly by the Crown under Royal Prerogative and they report annually to the King. Their main role is regarding the recruitment of civil servants. They have the responsibility to ensure that all civil servants are recruited on the "principle of selection on merit on the basis of fair and open competition." They maintain a recruitment code on the interpretation and application of that principle, and approve any exceptions to it. They audit recruitment policies and practices within the Civil Service and approve all appointments to the most senior levels of the Civil Service. The Commissioners also hear and determine appeals in cases of concern about propriety and conscience raised by civil servants under the Civil Service Code which cannot be resolved through internal procedures. Northern Ireland has a separate Commission called the ''Civil Service Commissioners for Northern Ireland'' which has the same role.


Political neutrality

The Home Civil Service is a politically neutral body, with the function of impartially implementing the policy programme of the elected government.Ministers plot end to Civil Service neutrality - UK Politics - UK
The Independent (1 August 2012). Retrieved on 2013-08-24.
Like all servants of the
Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
, civil servants are legally barred from standing for election as Members of Parliament as they must uphold the duty of being politically neutral. Bradley and Ewing, p.279-80 Under regulations first adopted in 1954 and revised in 1984, members of the Senior Civil Service (the top management grades) are barred from holding office in a political party or publicly expressing controversial political viewpoints, while less senior civil servants at an intermediate (managerial) level must generally seek permission to participate in political activities. The most junior civil servants are permitted to participate in political activities, but must be politically neutral in the exercise of their duties. In periods prior to General Elections, the Civil Service undergoes purdah which further restricts their activities. All civil servants are subject to the
Official Secrets Acts 1911 to 1989 An official is someone who holds an office (function or mandate, regardless whether it carries an actual working space with it) in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority, (either their own or that of their su ...
, meaning that they may not disclose sensitive government information. Since 1998, there have also been restrictions on contact between civil servants and
lobbyist In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agencies. Lobbying, which ...
s; this followed an incident known as Lobbygate, where an undercover reporter for '' The Observer'', posing as a
business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separa ...
leader, was introduced by a lobbyist to a senior Downing Street official who promised privileged access to government ministers. The
Committee on Standards in Public Life The Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) is an advisory non-departmental public body of the United Kingdom Government, established by John Major in 1994 to advise the Prime Minister on ethical standards of public life. It promotes a code o ...
, also created in 1998, is responsible for regulation of contacts between public officials and lobbyists. The increasing influence of politically appointed special advisers in government departments can reduce the political neutrality of public administration. In Thatcher's government,
Alan Walters Sir Alan Arthur Walters (17 June 1926 – 3 January 2009) was a British economist who was best known as the Chief Economic Adviser to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from 1981 to 1983 and (after his return from the United States) again for f ...
was an official adviser from 1981 to 1984, and again in 1989. Walters' criticisms "of many aspects of Treasury policy, particularly in relation to exchange rate policy" and Thatcher's refusal to dismiss him led to Nigel Lawson's resignation as chancellor in 1989. Thatcher also claimed that the 1981 budget, which increased taxes during the recession and was criticised by 364 economists, had been devised by Walters. In 2000, then-Prime Minister
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
was criticised for appointing 20 special advisers (compared to eight under his predecessor John Major) and for the fact that the total
salary A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which may be specified in an employment contract. It is contrasted with piece wages, where each job, hour or other unit is paid separately, rather than on a periodic basis. ...
cost of special advisers across all government departments had reached £4 million. In 2001, Stephen Byers, then Secretary of State for Transport, was forced to resign because of the actions of his special adviser Jo Moore, who instructed a departmental civil servant,
Martin Sixsmith Martin Sixsmith (born 24 September 1954) is a British author and radio/television presenter, primarily working for the BBC. He has also worked as an adviser to the Labour government and to the BBC television comedy series ''The Thick of It''. S ...
, that
September 11, 2001 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerc ...
, would be " a good day to bury bad news"; this was seen as inappropriate political manipulation of the Civil Service. In particular, under the administration of
Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...
, the influence of two Downing Street special advisers, Jonathan Powell and
Alastair Campbell Alastair John Campbell (born 25 May 1957) is a British journalist, author, strategist, broadcaster and activist known for his roles during Tony Blair's leadership of the Labour Party. Campbell worked as Blair's spokesman and campaign director ...
, both of whom were given formal power over Downing Street civil servants, provoked widespread criticism. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government of 2010–2015 had proposed introducing a more American style system where senior civil servants, such as permanent secretaries, became political appointees. However, this was dropped after it was considered that the existing permanent civil service style was better-suited to the government of the United Kingdom. The political neutrality of the civil service was called into question during the 2016 - 2019
Brexit negotiations Between 2017 and 2019, representatives of the United Kingdom and the European Union negotiated the terms for Brexit, the planned withdrawal of the UK from the EU. These negotiations arose following the decision of the Parliament of the United ...
, with political figures such as
Brexit Party Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit, and was briefly a significant p ...
Leader
Nigel Farage Nigel Paul Farage (; born 3 April 1964) is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party (renamed Reform UK in 2021) from 20 ...
accusing the civil service of having a "pro-Remain bias". In response Sir Mark Sedwill, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, issued a letter to all
Department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
Chiefs warning that Brexit was having an "unsettling" effect on civil servants.


Codes


Civil Service Code

A version of the civil service code was introduced in 2006 to outline the core values and standards expected of civil servants. The core values are defined as ''integrity'', ''honesty'', ''objectivity'', and ''impartiality''. A key change from previous values is the removal of ''anonymity'' within the core values. The Code includes an independent line of appeal to the Civil Service Commissioners on alleged breaches of the Code. a version updated in March 2015, with the same core values, was current. In addition to civil servants, special advisers are also covered by the code, except, due to the nature of the role, for the requirements for objectivity and impartiality.


Civil Service Management Code

The Civil Service Management Code (CSMC) sets out the regulations and instructions to departments and agencies regarding the terms and conditions of service of civil servants. It is the guiding document which gives delegation to civil service organisations, from the Minister for the Civil Service, in order for them to make internal personnel policies.


Civil Service Commissioners' Recruitment Code

The Civil Service Commissioners' Recruitment Code is maintained by the Civil Service Commissioners and is based on the ''principle of selection on merit on the basis of fair and open competition.''


Osmotherly Rules

The
Osmotherly Rules The Osmotherly Rules, named for their author, a civil servant in the Machinery of Government Division of the British Cabinet Office named E. B. C. Osmotherly, are a set of internal guidelines specifying how government departments should ...
set out guidance on how civil servants should respond to Parliamentary select committees.


Directory of Civil Service Guidance

A two-volume 125-page ''Directory of Civil Service Guidance'' was published in 2000 to replace the previous ''Guidance on Guidance'', providing short summaries of guidance on a wide range of issues and pointing to more detailed sources.


Structure

The structure of the home civil service is divided into organisations, grades and professions. Each Secretary of State has a
Department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
which has
executive agencies An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Nor ...
and non-departmental public bodies subordinate to it.


Grading schemes

The grading system used in the civil service has changed many times, and the current structure is made up of two schemes. All senior grades (Deputy Director / Grade 5 level and above) are part of the senior civil service, which is overseen by the
Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...
on behalf of the civil service as a whole. Below the senior civil service, each individual department/executive agency can put in place its own grading and pay arrangements, provided they still comply with the central civil service pay and review guidance. For other grades many departments overlay their own grading structure, however all these structures must map across to the central government structure as shown below. All current grades are marked in and historical grade names are shown ''italics''. NB – XXX is standing in for


Professions

The ''lingua franca'' is to describe civil servants, and in particular their grades, predominantly through a lens of administrative activity (as in the current structure of the table above), but in practice the civil service has, and always had, a number of subdivisions, with the Historic Grades having an additional designator (usually omitted for senior managers, but included from middle and junior managers) as shown as "xxx", with the major groupings being: * Executive ( O) * Scientific ( O) * Professional and Technology ( TO) The Current Structure identifies a number of distinct professional groupings: * Communications and Marketing * Economics * Engineering * Finance * Human Resources * Digital, Data and Technology (formerly Information Technology) * Inspector of Education and Training * Internal Audit * Knowledge and Information Management * Law * Medicine * Operational Delivery * Operational Research * Policy Delivery * Procurement and Contract Management * Programme and Project Management * Property Asset Management * Psychology * Science * Social Research * Statistics * Tax Professionals * Veterinarian * Other (for minority groups, such as Investigating Officers) Recruitment data from the 2018 Civil Service Fast Stream process showed that white applicants were 15 times more likely to be recruited than black candidates.


Privilege days

A privilege day is a day of
annual leave Annual leave is a period of paid time off work granted by employers to employees to be used for whatever the employee wishes. Depending on the employer's policies, differing number of days may be offered, and the employee may be required to giv ...
granted to employees of the civil service. These are in addition to
bank holidays A bank holiday is a national public holiday in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and the Crown Dependencies. The term refers to all public holidays in the United Kingdom, be they set out in statute, declared by royal proclamation or held ...
. Before 2013, there were 2.5 privilege days each year: * The King's Official Birthday. This is a full day usually attached to the Spring Bank Holiday, the last Monday in May, on either the Friday before the Bank Holiday or the Tuesday after (in order to create a four-day weekend), originally allocated in respect of the King's Official Birthday. *
Maundy Thursday Maundy Thursday or Holy Thursday (also known as Great and Holy Thursday, Holy and Great Thursday, Covenant Thursday, Sheer Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries, among other names) is the day during Holy Week that commemorates the Washing of the ...
. This was a half day on the afternoon of the Thursday of Holy Week. *
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
. This was an extra full day of leave at Christmas, in addition to the bank holidays of
Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the Christian liturgical year, ...
and Boxing Day. It is often arranged so as to connect the Christmas bank holidays to an adjacent weekend. Since reforms by the Cabinet Office in 2013, the Maundy Thursday (Easter) and Christmas privilege days are no longer available for new civil servants. For civil servants who were in their positions when the changes came into force, these 1.5 days have been converted into additional annual leave. Because the Queen's Birthday privilege day was granted by Queen Victoria, it would have been difficult for the Cabinet Office to abolish it by an administrative measure, so the Cabinet Office decided to retain this as a privilege day. Privilege days still count as "working days" for the purpose of
freedom of information Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigen ...
requests.


In popular culture

The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
television series ''
Yes Minister ''Yes Minister'' is a British political satire sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Comprising three seven-episode series, it was first transmitted on BBC2 from 1980 to 1984. A sequel, ''Yes, Prime Minister'', ran for 16 episodes fro ...
'' and ''
Yes Prime Minister ''Yes Minister'' is a British political satire sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Comprising three seven-episode series, it was first transmitted on BBC2 from 1980 to 1984. A sequel, ''Yes, Prime Minister'', ran for 16 episodes fro ...
'' are a
satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...
on the British
civil service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
and its relationship with government ministers. The portrayal is a caricature of the civil service predominantly characterised through Sir Nigel Hawthorne's Sir Humphrey Appleby. '' The Thick of It'', first broadcast in 2005, is a similar BBC television series that has been called "the 21st century's answer to Yes Minister". The series portrays a modernised version of the interactions between the Civil Service and the Government (chiefly in the form of special advisors), as well as the media's involvement in the process. There is a long history of civil servants who are also literary authors, who often comment on their own institutions, including such writers as John Milton,
John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the p ...
,
Andrew Marvell Andrew Marvell (; 31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend ...
,
Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 175921 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who ha ...
, William Wordsworth and
Anthony Trollope Anthony Trollope (; 24 April 1815 – 6 December 1882) was an English novelist and civil servant of the Victorian era. Among his best-known works is a series of novels collectively known as the ''Chronicles of Barsetshire'', which revolves arou ...
, and diarist Samuel Pepys.


See also

* Colonial Service * Departments of the United Kingdom Government * FDA * His Majesty's Diplomatic Service *
Northern Ireland Civil Service The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS; ga, Státseirbhís Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''Norlin Airlann Cïvil Sarvice'') is the permanent bureaucracy of employees that supports the Northern Ireland Executive, the devolved governmen ...
* Public administration *
Public and Commercial Services Union The Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) is the sixth largest trade union in the United Kingdom. Most of its members work in UK government departments and other public bodies. History The union was founded in 1998 by the merger of t ...
(PCS)


References


Citations


Cited sources

* Bodde, D., ''Chinese Ideas in the West'

* Bradley, A.W. and Ewing, K.D., ''Constitutional and Administrative Law'' (Pearson, 2003) * Foster, C., ''British Government in Crisis'' (Hart 2005) * House of Commons Public Administration Committee, ''"These Unfortunate Events": Lessons of Recent Events at the Former DTLR'', HMSO 200

* Sampson, Anthony, ''The Changing Anatomy of Britain'' (Hodder and Stoughton, 1982) * Sullivan, Ceri, ''Literature in the Civil Service: Sublime Bureaucracy'' (Palgrave, 2012) * Jonathan Tonge, ''The New Civil Service'' (Baseline, Tisbury 1999) * Zifcak, S., ''New Managerialism: Administrative Reform in Whitehall and Canberra'' (Open University Press, 1994)


External links


Site explaining what being a civil servant is all about, maintained by a senior public official, Martin Stanley

Official Civil Service website

Civil Service Club website


* [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/osp24.pdf The National Archives – Operational Selection Policy 24 – (which lists by date issues and events from March 1974 to 2000 relating to the machinery of Government and Civil Service management the key records of which should be preserved)]
Cabinet Office – official site

GOV.UK – How Government Works

Collection of civil service conduct and guidance

BBC brief on the British Civil Service
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Guardian Special Report – Civil Service
{{Use dmy dates, date=May 2018 Public administration Cabinet Office (United Kingdom)