Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Public Administration Select Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215040671
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 164
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Book Description
The new arrangements implemented at the top of the Civil Service on the retirement of Sir Gus O'Donnell could lead to weaker leadership and disperse power at a critical time of change in government and that they will not succeed unless ministers, and particularly the Prime Minister, accords the two roles - Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service - equal power and status. There is a risk that the Cabinet Secretary will be "top dog", and the Head of the Civil service will be relegated to a subservient role rendering him ineffective. The report makes public for the first time an organisation chart of the new arrangements. The key findings are: doubts whether the new Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake, will be able to fulfil all the duties set out in his lengthy job description in the two days per week allocated to the post, while also acting as Permanent Secretary in a major department of state; Sir Bob must have the seniority and the ear of the Prime Minister in order to fulfil his role and parity of status with the Cabinet Secretary; he must attend Cabinet regularly on the same basis as the Cabinet Secretary; PASC recommends a full-time Head of the Civil Service who should also be Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, overseeing a stronger centre of government able to implement change across Whitehall; the Government should conduct a full of review these changes in July 2012.
Author: Martin Stanley
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
ISBN: 1785900161
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 123
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Book Description
Although it is seldom recognised as such by the public, the civil service is a profession like any other. The UK civil service employs 400,000 people across the country, with over 20,000 students and graduates applying to enter every year through its fast-stream competition alone. Martin Stanley's seminal How to Be a Civil Servant was the first guidebook to the British civil service ever published. It remains the only comprehensive guide on how civil servants should effectively carry out their duties, hone their communication skills and respond to professional, ethical and technical issues relevant to the job. It addresses such questions as: How do you establish yourself with your minister as a trusted adviser? How should you feed the media so they don’t feed on you? What’s the best way to deal with potential conflicts of interest? This fully updated new edition provides the latest advice, and is a must-read for newly appointed civil servants and for those looking to enter the profession – not to mention students, academics, journalists, politicians and anyone with an interest in the inner workings of the British government.
Author: Patrick Dunleavy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1349241415
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 371
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Book Description
This new reader is designed to break the mould of core executive studies by broadening the focus of analysis from the conventional concentration on the relative power of Prime Minister and Cabinet to assess the whole battery of mechanisms which co-ordinate policy and manage conflict. It brings together chapters introducing new theoretical perspectives and assessing the changes in executive structure and decision making from Wilson to Thatcher with in-depth case studies of the executive in action.
Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Select Committee on the Constitution
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780108459320
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
The House of Lords Constitution Committee have today published their 4th report of the 2009-10 session on 'The Cabinet Office and the Centre of Government' (HLP 30, ISBN 9780108459320) in which they suggest that power within the cabinet has become increasingly centralised to the Prime Minister and recommend that structures of accountability should be reformed to mirror that change. The Committee expresses support for the principles of collective responsibility but recognise that increasingly the Cabinet Office has become responsible for overseeing the delivery of government policy across departments. They stress that accountability mechanisms within the UK constitution are not set up to reflect this new reality with parliamentary and select committee scrutiny based on individual Ministers reporting to Parliament for activities within their departments. The Committee also considers the role of the Minister for the Cabinet Office, and state that the responsibilities of the post are currently poorly defined. They recommend that the Government reassess the functions of the Minister for the Cabinet Office to ensure that the postholder's responsibilities accurately reflect the strategic role the Cabinet Office plays in delivering government policy. The report goes on to consider the approach taken to changes to the machinery of government and the change in the role and function of the Lord Chancellor which took place during Tony Blair's time as Prime Minister. The Committee states that the process of change involved ’wholly inadequate' consultation both within government and with the senior judiciary, and further states that there was "no justification for failure to consult on these important reforms". The Committee recommends that in future the Cabinet Office should play a formal role in investigating any machinery of government changes, particularly those with constitutional implications.
Author: Ian Beesley
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1351980866
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 737
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Book Description
This book is the official history of British Cabinet Secretaries, the most senior civil servants in UK government, from the post-war period up to 2002. In December 1916 Maurice Hankey sat at the Cabinet table to take the first official record of Cabinet decisions. Prior to this there had been no formal Cabinet agenda and no record of Cabinet decisions. Using authoritative government papers, some of which have not yet been released for public scrutiny, this book tells the story of Hankey’s post-war successors as they advised British Prime Ministers and recorded Cabinet’s crucial decisions as the country struggled through the exhaustion that followed World War II, grappled with a weak economy that could not support its world ambitions, saw the end of the post-war economic and social consensus and faced the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers symbol of Western dominance. It looks at events through the eyes of politically neutral senior civil servants, the mandarins of Britain. It shows how the dramatic foreshortening of timescales and global news have complicated the working lives of those who daily face the deluge of potentially destabilising events – the skills required to see dangers and opportunities around corners, when to calm things down and when to accelerate action; why secrecy is endemic when government comes close to losing control or when political ambition threatens self-destruction. This book will be of great interest to students of British politics, British history and British government.
Author: David Faulkner
Publisher: Waterside Press
ISBN: 1909976024
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 211
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Book Description
Servant of the Crown takes the reader inside Whitehall to see how issues of the day were handled and policies formed as the author progressed to working alongside Home Secretaries and other senior politicians. Charting high profile events and everyday activities, it covers government’s approaches towards political, strategic and operational situations, looking also at traditions of public service and freedom under the law. Centrally the book discusses the relationship between civil servants and ministers; also with judges, magistrates and criminal justice services across a 30-year time frame (from the late-1950s to the early-1990s). It includes an explanation of the author’s understanding of a civil servant’s duty as a servant of the Crown, historically and in a world where public services have become increasingly subject to political intervention. The book is illustrated by examples of the interaction between political and professional points of view, covering situations familiar to the police, courts and correctional services. Equally it will be of interest to students of government, especially those concerned with how policy is formulated in answer to the immediacy of political events or the continuum of knowledge and experiences of civil servants (whichever administration is in power). With a Foreword by the Rt Hon Sir John Chilcot, GCB. ‘Raises crucial questions about … the proper roles of civil servants and politicians’: Professor Rob Canton. ‘Enriches our understanding’: Professor David Downes. ‘Anyone interested in the state and its relationship to citizens should read [this book]’: Professor Graham Towl. ‘A uniquely rewarding book’: John Chilcot.
Author: June Burnham
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1137086653
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Britain's Modernised Civil Service provides detailed analysis of the structure and operation of the modern civil service along with an historically grounded account of its development. Key events, personalities and scandals help bring the account to life and illuminate and challenge the various theories of what the civil service is or should be. The authors take the evolutionary change of the civil service as a central theme and examine the impact of the major reforms of recent years on the historic Whitehall unitary model. They assess the impact of the New Public Management agenda of the Thatcher and Major years and the role of the Civil Service in the multi-governmental context of devolution and membership of the European Union. Further changes associated with New Labour such the increased role of think tanks, special advisers and the impact of the freedom of information act further sharpen the picture of today's civil service and lead to a rethinking of theories of its role. This readable book by two leading authorities provides an up-to-date account of Britain's Civil Service that will be essential reading for students of British politics, public policy and management. June Burnham is a researcher and consultant in the area of public services and public policy and formerly Senior Lecturer in European Government at Middlesex University. Robert Pyper is Professor of Government and Public Management, and Head of the Division of Public Policy at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is author of The British Civil Service for which this is a fully-revised replacement volume.
Author: Andrew Blick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1509904107
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 454
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Book Description
This book describes an astounding feat of constitutional writing and publication. For a number of decades, officials working across different branches of the United Kingdom (UK) constitution have been engaged in a series of separate projects. Taken in their totality, they amount to a vast enterprise. Yet, until now, no-one has fully recognised or critically analysed what has taken place. There has been a proliferation in the UK of publicly available codes, normally lacking a basis in statute, providing official accounts of a variety of different features of UK constitutional rules and principles. They cover institutions ranging from the Cabinet to the Civil Service to the judiciary, and relationships between entities such as central government and the devolved executives; and between the UK executive and the Westminster Parliament. Among them are prominent texts such as the Ministerial Code, the Cabinet Manual, the Guide to Judicial Conduct and the devolution Memorandum of Understanding – as well as more obscure documents that nonetheless contain important stipulations regarding the operation of the system. Similar developments have taken place in countries including Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The author explores the history of this phenomenon in the UK, how it functions today here and elsewhere in the Commonwealth, and its implications for the UK constitution.
Author: R.L. Borthwick
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315481510
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
This text summarizes the research on, and experiences of, democratic legislatures around the world. It focuses on what legislatures are and what they do - as both consequence of and contributor to democratic self-government.
Author: Nigel Forman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134581742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433
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Book Description
Examines the unprecedented changes to institutions of political power since New Labour's victory, collectively and in detail, placing each in its historical context, analysing solutions and what the future holds for this ambitious reform period.
