Cross Channel Perspectives on British Civil Service Training, 1980-2000: Fit For Business: Fit For Change

Abstract

This study analyses the evolution of the British premier civil service training institute - the Civil Service College in Sunningdale-over the period 1970-2000 through a perspective derived from looking at its nearest French equivalent, the Ecole Nationale d’.dministration in Paris. The four periods are variously described as ‘professionalisation’ in the 1970s, ‘managerialisation’ in the 1980s, ‘service-orientation’ in the 1990s and ‘modernisation’ now. The author was for much of the period a civil servant and a practitioner and he concludes that, whereas the ENA has been very close to and in many ways is the establishment in France, the Civil Service College has been more distant from but equally influenced by and indicative of ministerial policies and Whitehall trends