The Challenge of Change in the Civil Service: 2004 in Retrospect

Abstract

This is an article of record. It presents information about what has happened in relation to the British Civil Service in the last year or so, analyses that information and presents a discussion of it. The article has no methodological pretensions, and is essentially based on official documents and other publicly available records or information. Three of the most important of these sources are: first, the evidence and report of the Hutton Inquiry, which revealed much about the inner workings of government; secondly the report of the subsequent Butler Inquiry; and thirdly, the report of the Gershon Inquiry on the delivery of public services and the statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which partly dealt with some of the matters raised in the Gershon report. There is one other set of documents that provides an overall framework for discussion, and these relate to a ‘Civil Service Reform Event’ held in February 2004, addressed by the Prime Minister and the Head of the Civil Service. These documents reveal the attitudes of those in charge of the civil service and, as with the other documents discussed, contain information and recommendations that are vital to understand changes in the civil service over the period under review, and potential changes for the future. To some extent this is countered by the thoughtful deliberations of the Public Administration Select Committee, which published a report including a draft Civil Service Bill, but the overriding impression, despite lip-service to the contrary, is of a government out of sympathy with public service.