The Rise of Managerial Bureaucracy : Reforming the British Civil Service

The book provides detailed analysis of the structure and operation of the British Civil Service along with a historically grounded account of its development in the period from Margaret Thatcher to the Tony Blair premiership. It assesses continuity and change in the civil service during a period of deep transformation using new archive files, government and parliament reports, primary and secondary legislation. The author takes the evolutionary change of the civil service as a central theme and examines the friction between new managerial practices introduced by government in the 80s and 90s and the administrative traditions rooted in the history of this institution. In particular the author assesses the impact of the New Public Management agenda of the Thatcher and Major years its enhanced continuity during the Blair years. Further changes that involved ministerial responsibility, codification, performance management, special advisers and constitutional conventions are analyzed in the conclusions. Lorenzo Castellani is Research and Teaching Assistant at LUISS Guido Carli in Rome. He was previously visiting scholar at King's College London, visiting fellow at the Open University, and studied at IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca. Preface 6 Contents 11 Chapter 1 The Civil Service: Definition, Organisation and Historical Background 12 The History of the British Civil Service: From Its Origins to the Crisis of the Late Seventies 18 Origins and Development of the Westminster–Whitehall Model 18 The Seeds of the Managerialisation Process: The Fulton Committee and Its Report (1966–1970) 26 1970–1974: Heath’s Attempt to Modernise the Central Government 31 Malaise and Crisis in the Public Sector: Towards Thatcher’s Era 36 References 39 Chapter 2 The Rise of Managerialism in the Civil Service: The Thatcher Years 41 The Political, Economic, Social and Administrative Environment in the Early 1980s 41 The Political Impact of the New Right on the Public Sector 41 The Social Context: The Distrust of Government and Bureaucracy 43 The Economic Paradigm: The End of Keynesianism 45 The Administrative Context: The Seeds of Managerialisation 46 The New “Right” Approach to the Civil Service and Administrative Reform 48 Thatcher’s Opposition and the Civil Service 48 The 1979 Conservative Manifesto 49 The 1979 Reform of the Select Committees 50 The Higher Civil Service and the Thatcher Factor: An Outlook on the Appointments 52 Efficiency and Managerial Culture: Rayner’s Public Management Reforms 55 1979–1983: The Rayner Project for Public Management 55 The Reduction of Quangos: A Spending Review Attempt 62 A Priority for the Prime Minister: Reducing Departmental Manpower 64 The Abolition of the Civil Service Department 67 1983–1987: The Rise of Managerialism and Central Government Reform. MINIS and FMI, Lasting Reforms and the Open Structure Restructuring 71 The Embryo of Public Management Reforms: 1982–1984 71 Lasting Reforms in Broader Terms 72 MINIS and the Financial Management Initiative 75 The FMI Further Development (1982–1987) 78 The Cassels Report: Improving Career Management and Training for a “New Breed” of Skilled Public Managers 83 The Central Policy Review Staff Abolition: The End of the Government’s Think Tank 85 From FMI to the Next Steps Executive Agencies 87 The Last Effort to Reform: Trade Unionism Transformation in the Public Sector, Civil Service Regulation, Pay and Performances, Recruitment and Training 89 Transformation of Trade Unionism in the Public Sector: The Government Communication Headquarters Case (1984) 89 The Armstrong Memorandum and the Renewed Constitutional Debate on the Civil Service 90 The Changing Structure of the Civil Service: Pay and Promotion System 96 Changes in the Civil Service’s Recruitment and Training 105 Completing the Puzzle: Towards Next Steps Reform. Working Patterns and Administrative Agencies 110 The New Civil Service Working Patterns: The Mueller Report 110 The Birth of the Next Steps Report 112 Implementing the Report and Building the Agencification (1988–1990) 118 Conclusions: From Reducing Waste and Manpower to a Neo-Managerial Bureaucracy 124 References 125 Chapter 3 Focus on Policy Implementation, Consumer Service and Marketisation: Civil Service Reform in the Major Government (1990–1997) 132 Continuity and Implementation: The Executive Agencies 132 Implementing Next Steps Agencies 133 The Citizen’s Charter Initiative: Towards Customer Service in Central Government 141 Inside the Charter 143 From Charter to Charters 143 The Citizen’s Charter and Its Relationship with Government Departments and Next Steps Agencies 145 The Results of the Charter 146 Charter Mark and Charterline: A History of One Success and One Failure 148 The Rise of Marketisation: Market Testing, Contracting Out and Competing for Quality 151 The Civil Service: Continuity and Change—The Resilience of Traditions 157 Preserving Traditional Values: The Role of the Civil Service 160 Taking Forward Continuity and Change 161 Conclusions: The Friction Between Management and Tradition at the End of the Twentieth Century 165 References 166 Chapter 4 1997–2007: Coordination, Consolidation and Delivery in Blair’s Government 169 New Labour, the Third Way and the Consolidation of Public Management 169 A New Governmental Style: The Reorganisation of the Central Government 173 Sweeping Away the Quango State? Continuity with Mixed Results 176 The Comprehensive Spending Review: Routinising Public Spending Control in the Civil Service 180 Public Services for the Future: The Public Service Agreements 181 Modernising Government: A New Focus on Public Services Delivery for the Civil Service 182 The Implementation of Performance Evaluation: Good Practice in Performance Reporting 189 The New Centre of Government 191 The Delivery Unit: Creation and Aims 192 The Rising Importance of Policy-Making Process Organisation 196 The Rise of Leadership in the Civil Service 199 Three Reviews for Efficiency in the Public Sector in the Twenty-First Century: Gershon, Lyons and Hampton Reviews 202 Departmental Capability Reviews: Enforcing Delivery in the Core Executive 205 The Freedom of Information Act and the Civil Service 208 Conclusions: Delivery, Politicisation, Coordination in Blair’s Era 210 References 211 Chapter 5 Management and Tradition in the British Civil Service: Assessing Institutional Development—Issues and Conclusions 214 The New Legal Framework of the Civil Service: Preserving the Tradition 215 The Rise of Special Advisers and Their Process of Institutionalisation 218 Ministerial Responsibility: Implications Produced by Three Decades of Administrative Reforms 224 Performance Management: A Permanent Evolution Towards a Government by Measurement 227 Everything Changes but Constitutional Conventions: Administrative Reforms and Constitutional Conservatism 231 Conclusions: The Rise of Managerial Bureaucracy 234 References 236 Bibliography 239 Index 258 Annotation The book provides detailed analysis of the structure and operation of the British Civil Service along with a historically grounded account of its development in the period from Margaret Thatcher to the Tony Blair premiership. It assesses continuity and change in the civil service during a period of deep transformation using new archive files, government and parliament reports, primary and secondary legislation. The author takes the evolutionary change of the civil service as a central theme and examines the friction between new managerial practices introduced by government in the 80s and 90s and the administrative traditions rooted in the history of this institution. In particular the author assesses the impact of the New Public Management agenda of the Thatcher and Major years its enhanced continuity during the Blair years. Further changes that involved ministerial responsibility, codification, performance management, special advisers and constitutional conventions are analyzed in the conclusions Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii The Civil Service: Definition, Organisation and Historical Background (Lorenzo Castellani)....Pages 1-29 The Rise of Managerialism in the Civil Service: The Thatcher Years (Lorenzo Castellani)....Pages 31-121 Focus on Policy Implementation, Consumer Service and Marketisation: Civil Service Reform in the Major Government (1990–1997) (Lorenzo Castellani)....Pages 123-159 1997–2007: Coordination, Consolidation and Delivery in Blair’s Government (Lorenzo Castellani)....Pages 161-205 Management and Tradition in the British Civil Service: Assessing Institutional Development—Issues and Conclusions (Lorenzo Castellani)....Pages 207-231 Back Matter ....Pages 233-259