And Northern Ireland

Ø 1) Answer the questions on the text:

a) Is British civil service political?

b) What are the requirements for entering the civil service?

c) Can British civil servants be removed from their posts?

d) What is promotion in British civil service based on?

e) What is the hierarchy of British civil service?

f) Which skills are essential for British civil servants?

g) How are successful British civil servants rewarded?

When we speak of “the Government” we tend to think of the ministers, who are politicians. But each department has a large staff of professional civil servants who do most of the work of running the department on the minister’s behalf.

The Civil Service in the UK is wholly non-political. Those of its members who are in any way concerned with administration are forbidden to be candidates for Parliament or to give public support to any political party, though they may vote at elections. When a new government comes into office, the same civil servants must work for the new ministers, who a few weeks before led the attack on the old ministers’ policies.

In the three weeks before a general election, when ministers, as leading party politicians, are away campaigning for their party, the civil servants continue to administer their departments. But they also have to prepare themselves for the possibility of a change of government, so they study the election manifesto of the opposition party, so as to be prepared to advise new ministers on the implementation of their programme if the election results in a change of government.

The Civil Service is a life’s career. Most of those who advise ministers have joined the service after taking bachelors’ degrees at universities, at the age of about twenty-two, though some have joined at an earlier age without going to university, and made their way up by promotion. Entry to the Service is controlled by the Civil Service Commission. People who hope to become civil servants must pass through a long selection process, with a series of tests designed to measure their competence and suitability, and many of those who are chosen have been among the most successful students in their university examinations. They are trained at the Civil Service College which provides courses both for newly-appointed officials and for those at later stages of their careers.

A civil servant in an established post has almost complete security of tenure, and can in practice only be removed for improper conduct. Promotion is not automatic according to seniority, but selective, and based on the recommendation of superior officers. A civil servant does not necessarily remain in the same department all through a long career. In fact when a department has a vacancy in one of its top posts it is very likely that it will be filled by someone from another department. The chief official of a department is the Permanent Secretary, and below him are under-secretaries, assistant secretaries and others in a hierarchy. The Permanent Secretary is in close touch with the minister, and has the task of issuing directives which will put the minister’s policies into force. Each civil servant must know exactly how far his personal responsibility extends, and what questions he ought to refer to someone higher up.

Many people say that Britain is really managed by the Civil Service, and that the ministers, being mere amateurs, just do what the civil servants tell them to do - or find themselves frustrated whenever they try to implement any new ideas. One of the main professional duties of civil servants is to shield their ministers from criticism in the House of Commons. Any innovation is likely to upset some established interest, which can be relied upon to feed some Member of Parliament with material to attack it.

Genuine loyalty to the minister in office is the first element in the professionalism of any civil servant, skill in defending departmental positions is the second; and an ability to reconcile the two, even when they conflict, demands intelligence, hard work and flexibility. A successful civil servant is rewarded by high pay, state honours and a right to an inflation-proof pension at sixty.

Ø 2) Write a summary of the text in your own words.

Ø 3) Read text 5.22 “The Mandarins of Whitehall” and say what else you have learnt about British civil service.