The civil service

To help run the complexities of a modern government, there is an organization called the cabinet office. It runs a busy communications network, keeping ministers in touch with each other and drawing up the agenda for cabinet meetings. These committees are appointed by the cabinet to look into various matters in more detail than the cabinet has the time (or knowledge) for. Unlike ‘the government’ itself, the people on these committees are not necessarily politicians.

The heart of the Civil Service is the Cabinet Office, whose Secretary is the most senior civil servant at any given time. The responsibilities are considerable, including the proper and smooth running of the whole Civil Service as well as serving ministers collectively in the conduct of Cabinet business and ensuring the coordination of policy at the highest level. In each ministry or department the senior official, or Permanent Secretary, and his or her immediate subordinates, undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, remain responsible for assisting their minister in the implementation of government policy.

Although government is essentially political, it depends upon a permanent body of officials, the Civil Service, to administer the decisions of ministers. The Civil Service, employing almost 500,000 people, is expected to discharge its responsibilities in a politically impartial way. Civil servants must be as loyal to an incoming government as to the outgoing one, however, much as private individuals they may be pleased or dismayed at the change of government.

Unlike some other countries, not even the most senior administrative jobs change hands when a new government comes to power. Governments come and go, but the civil service remains. It is no accident that the most senior civil servant in a government department has the title of ‘Permanent Secretary’.

These people get a high salary (higher than their ministers) and have absolute job security (unlike their ministers). It is sometimes said that it is they, and not their ministers, who really govern the country. This is a matter of opinion, but there is evidence that top civil servants do indeed expect to have a degree of influence, if not control.

It seems, therefore, that career civil servants may be losing some of their former influence. In the second half of the twentieth century, ministers began to appoint experts from outside the civil service to work on various projects, and their own political advisers to work alongside their civil servants.

However, the British civil service has a largely deserved reputation for absolute political impartiality. Ministers have remarked on the struggle for power between them and their top civil servants, but very few have ever complained of political bias. The main hope for top civil servant to retain some influence on ministers is to continue staying out of ‘politics’.

• No. 10 Downing Street. This is the official residence of the Prime Minister. It is an example of the traditional fiction that Prime Ministers are not especially important people. It does not have a special name. Nor, from the outside, does it look very special. It is not even a detached house. Inside, though, it is much larger than it looks. The cabinet meets here and the cabinet office works here. The PM lives ‘above the shop’ on the top floor. The Chancellor of the Exchequer lives next door at No. 11, and the Government Chief Whip at No.12, so that the whole street is a lot more important than it appears. In the media ‘Downing Street’ is used to refer to the PM, the cabinet office and other close advisers of the PM. When a government loses an election, all three minister have to wait for the removal vans to turn up, just like anybody else moving house.

• Whitehall. This is the name of the street in London which runs from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament. Many Government departments are located here or in the streets running off it. As a result, the term ‘Whitehall’ is sometimes used as a way of referring to the administrative aspects of government. The phase ‘the opinion in Whitehall …’ refers to the opinions of senior civil servants and other administrators. Thus ‘Whitehall’ and ‘Downing Street’ can sometimes be in disagreement.

• The system of local government is essentially the same as it is nationally. There are elected representatives called councilors (equivalent of MPs), who meet in a council chamber in the Town Hall or County Hall (the equivalent of Parliament), where they make policy which is implemented by local government officers (equivalent of civil servants).

QUESTIONS:

1. What is usually meant when the media talk about ‘the government’?

2. What title do most heads of government departments have?

3. How many people do most governments consist of?

4. Who has much more power than other members of the government?

5. What is the role of the Cabinet? What is its responsibility?

6. Who helps run the complexities of a modern government?

7. What is the reputation of the Civil Service?

8. What do mass media usually refer to when they speak about ‘Whitehall’ or ‘Downing Street’?

9. What is the system of local government?