The Rise of Managerial Bureaucracy: Reforming the British Civil Service

ISBN-13: 9783319900315 / Angielski / Twarda / 2018 / 259 str.

Lorenzo Castellani

Opis

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.

Spis treści

Foreword

Chapter One. The Civil Service: Definition, Organization, and Historical Background

The History of the British Civil Service: from its Origins to the Crisis of the Late Seventies

The Seeds of the Managerialisation Process: the Fulton Committee and its Report (1966–1970)

1970–1974: Heath’s Attempt to Modernise the Central Government

Malaise and Crisis in the Public Sector: Towards Thatcher’s Era

Chapter Two. The Rise of Managerialism in the Civil Service.  The Thatcher Years.

The Political, Economic, Social, and Administrative Environment in the Early Eighties

The Political Impact of the New Right on the Public Sector

The Social Context: the Distrust of Government and Bureaucracy

The Economic Paradigm: the End of Keynesianism

The Administrative Context: the Seeds of Managerialisation

The New “Right” Approach to the Civil Service and Administrative Reform

Thatcher’s Opposition and the Civil Service

The 1979 Conservative Manifesto

The 1979 Reform of the Select Committees

The Higher Civil Service and the Thatcher Factor: an Outlook on the Appointments

Efficiency and Managerial Culture: Rayner’s Public Management Reforms

1979–1983: The Rayner Project for Public Management

The Reduction of Quangos: a Spending Review Attempt

A Priority for the Prime Minister: Reducing Departmental Manpower

The Abolition of the Civil Service Department

1983–1987: the Rise of Managerialism and Central Government Reform. MINIS and FMI, Lasting Reforms, and the Open Structure Restructuring

The Embryo of Public Management Reforms: 1982–1984

Lasting Reforms in Broader Terms

MINIS and the Financial Management Initiative

The FMI Further Development (1982–1987)

The Cassels Report: Improving Career Management and Training for a “New Breed” of Skilled Public Managers

The Central Policy Review Staff Abolition: the End of the Government’s Think Tank

From FMI to the Next Steps Executive Agencies

The Last Effort to Reform: Trade Unionism Transformation in the Public Sector, Civil Service Regulation, Pay and Performances, Recruitment, and Training

Transformation of Trade Unionism in the Public Sector: The Government Communication Headquarters Case (1984)

The Armstrong Memorandum and the Renewed Constitutional Debate on the Civil Service

The Changing Structure of the Civil Service: Pay and Promotion System

Changes in the Civil Service’s Recruitment and Training

Completing the Puzzle: Towards Next Steps Reform. Working Patterns and Administrative Agencies

The New Civil Service Working Patterns: the Mueller Report

The Birth of the Next Steps Report

Implementing the Report and Building the Agencification (1988–1990)

Conclusions: from Reducing Waste and Manpower to a Neo-managerial Bureaucracy

Chapter Three. Focus on Policy Implementation, Consumer Service, and Marketisation: Civil Service Reform in the Major Government (1990–1997)

Continuity and Implementation: the Executive Agencies

Implementing Next Steps Agencies

The Citizen’s Charter Initiative: Towards Customer Service in Central Government

Inside the Charter

From Charter to Charters

The Citizen’s Charter and its Relationship with Government Departments and Next Steps Agencies

The Results of the Charter

Charter Mark and Charterline: a History of One Success and One Failure

The Rise of Marketisation: Market Testing, Contracting Out, and Competing for Quality

The Civil Service: Continuity and Change. The Resilience of Traditions

Preserving Traditional Values: The Role of the Civil Service

Taking Forward Continuity and Change

Conclusions. The Friction Between Management and Tradition at the End of the Twentieth Century

Chapter Four. 1997–2007: Coordination, Consolidation, and Delivery in Blair’s Government

New Labour, the Third Way, and the Consolidation of Public Management

A New Governmental Style: The Reorganisation of the Central Government

Sweeping Away the Quango State? Continuity with Mixed Results

The Comprehensive Spending Review: Routinising Public Spending Control in the Civil Service

Public Services for the Future: the Public Service Agreements

Modernising Government: A New Focus on Public Services Delivery for the Civil Service

The Implementation of Performance Evaluation: Good Practice in Performance Reporting

The New Centre of Government

The Delivery Unit: Creation and Aims

The Rising Importance of Policy-Making Process Organisation

The Rise of Leadership in the Civil Service

Three Reviews for Efficiency in the Public Sector in the Twenty-First Century: Gershon, Lyons, and Hampton Reviews

Departmental Capability Reviews: Enforcing Delivery in the Core Executive

The Freedom of Information Act and the Civil Service

Conclusions: Delivery, Politicisation, Coordination in Blair’s Era

Chapter Five. Management and Tradition in the British Civil Service: Assessing Institutional Development. Issues and Conclusions

The New Legal Framework of the Civil Service: Preserving the Tradition

The Rise of Special Advisers and Their Process of Institutionalisation

Ministerial Responsibility: Implications Produced by Three Decades of Administrative Reforms

Performance Management: A Permanent Evolution Towards a Government By Measurement

Everything Changes but Constitutional Conventions: Administrative Reforms and Constitutional Conservatism

Conclusions: The Rise of Managerial Bureaucracy

Bibliography and References

O autorze

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. 

Blurb

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.