Northcote–Trevelyan Report
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The Northcote-Trevelyan Report was a document prepared by Stafford H. Northcote (later to be
Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...
) and C.E. Trevelyan (then
Permanent Secretary A permanent secretary (also known as a principal secretary) is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day ...
at the Treasury) about the
British Civil Service 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 or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, which ...
. Commissioned in 1853 and published in February 1854, the report catalysed the development of
Her Majesty's Civil Service 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 or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, whic ...
in the
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. Influenced by the Chinese
Imperial Examinations The imperial examination (; lit. "subject recommendation") refers to a civil-service examination system in Imperial China, administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by ...
, it recommended that entry to the Civil Service be solely on merit, to be enforced through the use of examinations. Its formal title was "Report on the Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service, Together with a Letter from the Rev. B. Jowett." The report is generally regarded as the founding document of the British Civil Service, enshrining the service with the "core values of integrity, propriety, objectivity and appointment on merit, able to transfer its loyalty and expertise from one elected government to the next". Recognising that, at the time, public administration was suffering “both in internal efficiency and in public estimation", it formed the basis for the principle of an impartial Civil Service.


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Full text of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report
Civil Service (United Kingdom) Reports of the United Kingdom government Imperial examination {{UK-gov-stub