MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT METHODS AND MEN

Abstract

RECENT criticism of the Civil Service, so far as it is not superficial or biased, is largely an expression of a fundamental concern with the whole machinery of government in Great Britain. That concern has been fed from numerous sources : for example, the examination of our whole organization of production and supply for war purposes, and the related question of the general direction of our war effort ; the difficulties raised by the recommendations of the Scott and of the Uthwatt reports and in attempts to co-ordinate the planning of reconstruction. The statement on a national policy for industry issued by a group of industrialists, following on Mr. S. Courtauld's paper on “Government and Industry” in the Economic Journal, stimulates further thought on the mechanism by which the necessary control of industry is to be exercised, a field to which Prof. Cushman's admirable study of the Independent Regulatory Commissions has directed attention in the United States. The report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management is another stimulus to fundamental thinking about the functions and machinery of government which can fairly be compared with the Haldane Committee's report on the Machinery of Government in Great Britain.