TRENDS
AND FEATURES
OF THE
1990S
79. Open Competition:
Before the 1990s, most senior appointments were made from
within the Civil Service by means of internal promotion. In recent
years, more vacancies to posts within the Senior Civil Service
have been advertised publicly and filled by open competition.
80. Prior Options:
Another trend in the 1990s has been the development of the technique
of "prior options" testing. Prior options tests are
intended to ensure that the Government provides as public services
only those functions which are both necessary and best carried
out in the public sector. The tests are based on the premise that
competition is the best way of ensuring value for money. The system
works by requiring managers to consider an activity in detail
at regular intervals, and to ask the following questions:
Does this activity need to be performed
at all? (If not, it should cease.)
If the Government does wish to retain
responsibility for a service, should competition for its provision
be introduced? Or should the activity be carried out by a Next
Steps Agency?
Could this activity be suitable for
privatisation? (If so, take appropriate steps.)
81. Agencies are reviewed
not less frequently that every four years. All agency reviews
include a rigorous test of prior options. Ministers also use prior
options to consider the potential for merging organisations or
transferring work between them. A recommendation that a particular
agency should retain its agency status must be supported by a
statement of the benefits to be gained.
82. Market Testing:
Market testing is the name given to the procedure whereby an activity
performed in-house by a part of the public service is subjected
to competition. Market testing may be compared with "make
or buy" decisions in the private sector. The intention is
to ensure that any given service is delivered in the way that
gives best value for money. The Efficiency Unit is responsible
for oversight of the Government's market testing policy and agreeing
strategic market testing targets for departments and agencies.
83. Fundamental Expenditure
Review: The overall intention of a Fundamental Expenditure
Review is to enable a department to manage its activities within
the tight running costs laid down by Ministers. The first Fundamental
Expenditure Review was undertaken by the Treasury itself (the
Department which came up with the procedure). It consisted of
a four person review team which spent about five months analysing
the activities and structure of the Treasury, and then produced
a report which contained a "mission statement" of the
Treasury's aims and objectives, and proposed the structure most
likely to allow the Treasury to achieve those objectives. The
result of that particular review was considerable staff reductions
and savings in the running of the department. Since then, all
the major departments of Government have completed a Fundamental
Expenditure Review.
84. Recruitment:
One of the main concerns of the 1990s in relation to recruitment
was to try to eradicate any possible bias (or prejudice) based
on gender or ethnic origin. Historically, women and applicants
from ethnic minorities have been under-represented in the fast
stream. In an effort to reduce this bias, a new "sift"
stage has been introduced into the fast-stream recruitment process,
whereby applicants' biodata are collected and analysed.
85. Judicial Review:
Increasingly, throughout the 1990s, judicial review has been used
to challenge administrative decisions in the United Kingdom. In
1974 there were 160 applications in England for leave to seek
judicial review; in 1987 there were 1529, and in 1993 there were
2,886. In 1987 the Treasury Solicitor's Department produced an
excellent training booklet on this for Civil Servants, called
The Judge over your Shoulder. This has sensitised officials
to the significance of judicial review in their daily work.
THE
STATE OF
THE AGENCIES
BY 1996
86. Throughout the 1990s,
more and more functions have been transferred from core departments
to agencies, and, in some cases, from agencies to the private
sector. By October 1996, 354,327 Home Civil Servants (72% of the
total) were working in agencies and other departments operating
on Next Steps lines. At that time there were 125 agencies. The
largest agency was the Social Security Benefits Agency (over 71,000
staff) and the smallest was Wilton Park (30 staff)-an agency of
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office operating as a conference
centre. Thirty-two further functions (carried out by 30,000 Civil
Servants) had been announced by Ministers to be agency candidates.
Other areas were still under consideration.
87. As a result of Prior
Options Reviews, by October 1996 the following agencies were amongst
those which had been privatised: the National Engineering Laboratory;
the Transport Research Laboratory; the Laboratory of the Government
Chemist; the Natural Resources Institute; Chessington Computer
Centre; the Occupational Health and Safety Agency; Recruitment
and Assessment Services Agency; and HMSO. In each case, the staff
were transferred (sometimes with, sometimes without, a viable
alternative of remaining within the Civil Service). Using the
1993 Next Steps Review as a guide, it is estimated that
these agencies together employed nearly 6,000 Civil Servants.
