Reforming the State

Abstract

The modernisation of the state has long been a theme of parties in government. Sclerosis of the institutions of central government has been seen as a cause of Britain’s economic and political failure by both the left and the right (Anderson, 1963; Barnett, 1986). Consequently, governments of both parties have attempted to deal with these problems through either piecemeal reforms or attempts at more fundamental change. Piecemeal change has often taken the form of the abolition, merging and creation of new departments. Sometimes these changes represented the priorities of the Prime Minister such as Labour’s establishment of a Ministry of Technology, and sometimes changing realities, as with the amalgamation of the ministries of Admiralty, War and Air into Defence (see R. Clarke, 1975).