Administrative Culture and Personnel Management: The British Civil Service in the 1980s
| Author | Richard A Chapman |
| DOI | 10.1177/014473948400400101 |
| Published date | 01 March 1984 |
| Date | 01 March 1984 |
Teaching
Public
Administration:
Spring
1984 Vol.IV No.1
pp
1-14
ADMINISTRATIVE
CULTURE
AND
PERSONNEL
MANAGEMENT:
THE
BRITISH
CIVIL
SERVICE
IN
THE
19805
RICHARD A
CHAPMAN
Reader
in
Politics.
University
of
Durham
Three
Reports
published
in
1983
from
the
Management
and
Personnel
Office
are
quite
extraordinarily
revealing
about
the
administrative
culture
of
the
British
civil
service.
They
tell
us
much
more
than
is
usual
in
officjal
reports
about
attitudes
within
the
civil
service
and
about
its
working
practices
in
the
field
of
personnel
management.
This
article
will
draw
attention
to
some
of
the
revelations,
raise
questions
and
propose
hypotheses
to
explain
why
so
much
has
been
officially
stated
in
this
manner
at
this
particular
time.
The
administrative
culture
of
the
British
civil
service
can
be
observed
in
the
attitudes
and
standards,
values,
beliefs
and
assumptions
of
civil
servants.
It
is
the
aggregate
of
the
values
and
beliefs
of
the
"individuals
who
make
up
the
civil
service.
It
is
most
noticeable
when
those
attitudes
and
values
are
distinctive
from
the
patterns
and
guidelines
more
generally
present
in
British
society:
they
may
be
quite
different
or
they
may
be
similar
but
more
concentrated
"or
extreme.
Very
little
has
been
written
about
this
culture
or,
indeed,
of
the
culture
of
public
bureaucracies
generally,
but
anyone
reading
recent
reports
on
personnel
work
in
the
civil
service
will
encounter
a
field
rich
in
information
as
well
as
in
lines
of
official
reasoning.
Within
the
civil
service
the
higher
echelons
in
partic-
ular
have
always
drawn
a
distinction
between
adminis-
tration
and
management.
Whereas
outside
the
civil
service
these
terms
may
be
almost
synonymous
or
have
a
hier-
archical
connotation
(administration
then
being
reserved
I
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