The Civil Service

Abstract

Significant changes in the managing of the civil service have taken place since 1979. There are differences of opinion whether these changes can be described as managerial incrementalism or as a managerial revolution, but there is no doubt that they have had a major impact on the organisational culture of the civil service. Though some of these changes have their origins in the proposals of the Fulton Report (1968), or even earlier, the impetus for the reforms which took place during the 1980s, and are continuing, was the election of the first Thatcher government in May 1979. Committed to a range of policies designed to reduce state activity, curb public expenditure, remove the inefficiency of state bureaucracy and deprivilegise the civil service, this government and those elected in 1983, 1987 and 1992 embarked on a programme of structural, cultural and managerial change.