The Civil Service

Abstract

During the 1980s and 1990s the civil service moved from an administered to a managed bureaucracy and from a system of public administration to one of new public management (NPM). The transformation was carried through by reforming Conservative governments under Margaret Thatcher and John Major and is being continued by the New Labour government, led by Tony Blair. Since the 1960s the civil service has been the subject of much criticism and debate, with the Fulton Report (1968) challenging its ability to carry out its contemporary functions efficiently or effectively, primarily because it was poorly managed. The legacy of Fulton can be found in an earlier version of this book (Horton, 1993). The main attack came, in the late 1970s, from the ‘New Right’ wing of the Conservative party which was committed to changing radically the role of the state, shifting the boundaries between the public and private sectors and reducing the size and modus operandi of the remaining public organisations. Since 1979, and the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister, the civil service has experienced unremitting, continuous change. The outcome is that it is smaller, its structure has radically altered, its methods of delivering services have been transformed and it is now staffed by a new cadre of public managers. The rapidity of the changes and their permanent impact are undoubtedly due to the fact that reforming Conservative governments were in office for an uninterrupted period of 18 years, which enabled effective and strong political steering.