Public Service - Report

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Here you can browse the report which was ordered by the House of Lords to be printed 19 January 1998.

CONTENTS

	Paragraph
SUMMARY OF THE REPORT
PART 1 INTRODUCTION	1
PART 2 THIRTY YEARS AGO: AN OVERVIEW	8
The Size of the Home Civil Service	8
Growth During 1967	9
Classification of Staff	10
The Civil Service Commission	12
Civil Service Pay	14
Training	16
Departments in Existence in 1967	17
Table 1: Major Departments as at 1st April 1967
Table 2: Departmental Responsibilities in 1967
Other Public Bodies	20
The Role of the Treasury	21
PART 3 CHANGES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE SINCE 1967	24
The Fulton Committee on the Civil Service	24
The Findings of the Fulton Committee	26
The Civil Service Department	28
The Civil Service College	31
The Reorganisation of Central Government White Paper	33
The Creation of the 'Giant' Departments	36
Control of Public Expenditure	37
Formulation of Policy	41
Personnel Management	44
Recruitment	49
Accountable Management	50
Hiving Off	52
Ministerial Accountability	53
Structural Reorganisation in the 1970s	56
The Strikes of 1979 and 1981	57
The Pliatzky Report	59
The Efficiency Unit	62
The Abolition of the Civil Service Department	65
The Financial Management Initiative	68
Structural Reorganisation in the 1980s	70
The Unions in the 1980s	71
The Ibbs Report and the Next Steps Agencies	72
The Abolition of the Civil Service Commission	75
The Creation of the Civil Service College Agency	77
Open Government	78
Trends and Features of the 1990s	79
The State of the Agencies by 1996	86
PART 4 THE CIVIL SERVICE TODAY	88
The Size of the Civil Service	88
Table 3: Major Departments as at 1st April 1997
The Departments of Central Government in 1997	89
Table 4: Departmental Responsibilities in 1997
Pay and Grading	91
The Senior Civil Service	92
Recruitment	93
Delegation of Pay	94
Delegation of Recruitment	97
The Civil Service Code	99
Training	100
The Treasury and the Cabinet Office	101
New Public Management	103
Other Public Bodies	105
Two Pictures: The Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in 1967 and the Department of Social Security in 1997	111
PART 5 SUMMARY OF GENERAL EVIDENCE ON THE PUBLIC SERVICE	119
Introduction	119
The Wider Context	126
The Extent and Manner of Change in the Civil Service	129
The Extent of Change	129
The Manner of Change	142
Further Changes?	147
The Committee's Conclusions	152
Structural Change in the Public Service	157
The Problem of Classification	158
The Committee's Conclusions	168
The Effect of the Agencies on the Structure of the Civil Service	171
The Committee's Conclusions	191
The Effect of Recruitment from Outside	196
The Committee's Conclusions	203
Fixed-Term Contracts	204
The Committee's Conclusions	206
Interchange of Staff	207
The Committee's Conclusions	213
Co-ordination across Structural Boundaries	214
The Committee's Conclusions	223
An Irreducible Minimum?	227
The Committee's Conclusions	244
Public Service Ethos	247
What is the Public Service Ethos?	248
Where does it Reside?	260
Is the Public Service Ethos Alive and Well?	263
The Effect of Structural Change on the Public Service Ethos	268
Public Services in the Private Sector	274
Morale	281
The Committee's Conclusions	289
Accountability	299
Changes in Accountability	299
Consistency of Approach: the Accountability Paradox	302
The Cost of Accountability	306
The Committee's Conclusions	308
Accountability for Policy and Acountability for Operations	311
(i) Introduction	311
(ii) Where the Split is Clear Cut	316
(iii) Where the Split is not Clear Cut: the Problem of Definition	318
(iv) The Impact of Policy on Operations	323
(v) The Impact of Operations on Policy	330
(vi) Agency Status?	341
The Committee's Conclusions	346
Answering Parliamentary Questions: the Constitutional Identity of the Civil Servant	350
The Committee's Conclusions	365
Performance Levels in the Civil Service	368
The Committee's Conclusions	382
Grievance and Redress	383
The Committee's Conclusions	392
The Impact of the European Union on the Civil Service	393
The Committee's Conclusions	402
A Civil Service Act	403
The Committee's Conclusions	415
PART 6 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS	419
The Extent and Manner of Change in the Civil Service (151-155)	419
Structural Change in the Civil Service	424
The Problem of Classification (168-170)	424
The Effect of the Agencies on the Structure of the Civil Service (191-195)	427
The Effect of Recruitment from Outside (203)	432
Fixed-Term Contracts (206)	433
Interchange of Staff (213)	434
Co-ordination across Structural Boundaries (223-226)	435
An Irreducible Minimum? (244-246)	439
Public Service Ethos (289-298)	442
Accountability	452
The Cost of Accountability (308-310)	452
Policy, Operations and Agency Status (346-349)	455
Answering Parliamentary Questions (365-367)	459
Performance Levels in the Civil Service (382)	462
Grievance and Redress (392)	463
The Impact of the European Union on the Civil Service (402)	464
A Civil Service Act (415-418)	465

Appendix 1-Membership of the Committee and Specialist Advisers

Appendix 2-List of Witnesses

Appendix 3-Examples of Public Bodies in Existence in 1967

Appendix 4-Restructuring of Government Departments before the 1970 White Paper

Appendix 5-Key Structural Changes Affecting Government Departments in the 1970s

Appendix 6-Civil Service Staff Numbers, 1967-1997

NOTE: References in the text of the Report are as follows:

(Q) refers to a question in oral evidence;

(p) refers to a page of written evidence.

The evidence taken in Session 1996-97 is printed in the Select Committee's Special Report HL Paper 68, Session 1996-97.

The evidence taken in Session 1997-98 is printed in the Select Committee's Evidence Volume, HL Paper 55-I, Session 1997-98.

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