Civil Service

   In the United Kingdom, civil servants were defined by the Tomlin Commission (1931) as ‘those who are servants of the Crown, other than holders of political or judicial offices, who are employed in a civil capacity and whose remuneration is paid wholly and directly out of moneys voted by Parliament’. The Service includes all those civilian officials who work in government departments or executive agencies. (Employees of the National Health Service and of local government authorities are not considered civil servants.) Civil servants are appointed to help the government of the day to carry out its policies and administer the public services for which it is responsible. Higher civil servants advise on policy and on the implementation of the decisions taken by ministers. The relationship between the non-elected but permanent civil servants and the elected but transient ministers is a key one in British government. Civil servants are expected to be politically neutral and are prohibited from taking part in political campaigns or being members of Parliament. However, the extent of this political neutrality in practice – especially within the ranks of the most senior of civil servants – has sometimes been questioned.

   Reform of the Civil Service in recent years – initiated in the Thatcher years but continuous ever since – has placed greater emphasis on developing professional expertise and the importance of managerial skills, rather than on its traditional amateurism. It has also resulted in a streamlined organisation whose membership has fallen from three-quarters of a million at its peak in 1976 to some 550,000 in late 2006.