Grades in civil service in the UK

Ø 1) Look through the text and make a supposition which category of readers this text will be interesting for.

(1) If you are a new recruit, arriving on your first day, you will first meet support (administrative) staff in reception areas delivering papers. They also carry out routine casework and provide direct support for senior staff. They are very important, not only because nothing would function without them, but also because they see more clearly than anyone else what is going on. If you want to know whether a unit is well run, and provides a good service to its customers, you will generally get a better informed, and more honest, answer from support staff.

(2) Next up the chain is middle management (or executive grades). They help to formulate and to amend policy. They deal with more difficult casework and help Ministers to respond to letters from the public. A small number of them are in the Fast Stream - serving a three to five year apprenticeship before being promoted to Grade 7 and then into the Senior Civil Service.

(3) Titles such as “Grade 7, ” or “Principal” are old-fashioned, and have been replaced by a wide range of other titles. There is no common title used across Whitehall, so the old titles live on. The main ones, at Grade 7 and above, are shown in the following table:

(4) What do these senior people do? They help Ministers and other officials to deliver Ministers’ objectives, both by giving advice to Ministers and by implementing Ministers’ decisions. They need to be able to work closely and effectively with Ministers, with other Whitehall civil servants, with the wider civil service, with the private and voluntary sectors and with pressure groups. They operate more like a club than a hierarchical organisation - and that is simultaneously their great strength and their great weakness.

(5) The key grade is Grade 7. Grade 7s are expected to know all there is to know about their policy area, and to know all the key players, pressure groups and so on. In a well-run department, you will find that senior officials listen very carefully to their Grade 7s, and tend to operate in a way which supports their Grade 7s, rather than vice versa.

(6) People in the Senior Civil Service include employees outside Whitehall, specialists and employees who first worked in other sectors. Indeed, the long-term aim is to have around one-third of the Senior Civil Service recruited from outside the civil service. Jobs in Senior Civil Service vary hugely, but usually include one or more of the following:

• agreeing strategic aims with Ministers, and communicating those aims to Grade 7s and others;

• agreeing and providing the financial and human resources needed to achieve those aims;

• deploying their greater knowledge and experience in support of Grade 7s;

• trouble-shooting;

• undertaking complex casework and project management, and

• acting as a personal adviser to Ministers.

(7) The breadth of responsibilities increases with increasing grade. Most departments structure themselves so as to cut out one of these tiers in each management hierarchy. It is worth noting that many senior officials do not necessarily mean more power. They have to rely on others both for information and for delivery, and they are often heavily constrained by political factors, including the independence of each Secretary of State, and hence the independence of each departmental senior management team.

(8) Other constraints on senior officials include the need to avoid annoying Ministers, and the club-like nature of senior officialdom. The latter can be a good thing because it encourages senior officials to work collaboratively rather than just for their own Ministers. But the “clubiness” of the Senior Civil Service can also lead to senior officials being over-tactful in their dealings with one another, which can delay change, leads to poor annual appraisals, and creates confused expectations.

Ø 2) Which paragraph of the text:

a) describes the relations between Grade 7s and senior officials?

b) describes the responsibilities of middle management?

c) explains the contemporary use of titles in civil service?

d) notes that many senior officials in the department do not necessarily mean more power?

e) mentions Fast Stream program for civil servants?

f) evaluates pros and cons of the club-like nature of senior officialdom?

g) says that department’s support staff is very important?

h) mentions the long-term aim of the British civil service?

Ø 3) Find professionally-relevant terms in the text. Find Russian equivalents to them.