Book Reviews
| Date | 01 June 1954 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1954.tb01313.x |
| Published date | 01 June 1954 |
BOOK
REVIEWS
The Home
Ofice
By
SIR
FRANK
NEWSAM. Allen
&
Unwin, Royal Institute of Public Administration,
1954.
Pp.
210.
15s.
IT
is a good thing that the Royal Institute
of Public Administration has been able,
in conjunction with Messrs. George Allen
and Unwin, to arrange for a new series of
books on the administration
of
Govern-
ment Departments. It is of great value
to all concerned with public administration,
whether in national
or
local government,
and to teachers of political science, that
volumes should be available telling
us
of
the functions and organisation
of
the
Departments of State.
The first volume in
this
New Whitehall
series is about the Home Office, a Depart-
ment with which
I
am very familiar, as
I
was Secretary of State for the Home
Department from
1940
to
1945
And it is
partisujarly of value that
it
should have
been written by Sir Frank Newsam, the
Permanent Under-Secretary of State
at
the Home Office, of whom
I
formed a high
opinion when he was Deputy Under-
Secretary during my period of office.
Clearly, being written by a civil servant,
it cannot deal with controversial aspects
of political policy. Nevertheless there is
still a very great deal
to
tell for, within
the scope and purpose of the series, the
book is comprehensive. It goes right
through the functions of the Home Office,
the political head of which is the senior
Secretary of State. These functions are
important and varied.
Apart from its responsibilities for the
police and prison services and important
matters concerned with aliens, the Home
Secretary supervises the fire service, civil
defence, the welfare of children, explosives,
safety in cinemas and theatres, liquor
licensing, and betting and lotteries. It
is the department that has relations with
Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands,
and the Isle of
Man.
It
has iesponsibilities
in relation to certain international matters,
cruelty to animals, wild birds’ protection,
charitable collections, and
it
is
the residuary
legatee
of
the functions of the Crown not
allocated to other Government Depart-
ments.
In
some of these matters the
Home Office,
of
course,
works
closely
with the Local Authorities and their part
in the various services is referred to in
this book.
It is fortunate for British civil liberty
that the Home Office does not deal
only
with police and prison services. This
distinguishes
our
Home Office from the
Ministries
of
the Interior
of
continental
countries. It
is
a good thing, because
in
so
far as
our
Home Office is concerned
with social and human services apart
from security services, it is more likely to
be human, more likely to respect the
principles of civil liberty, as
I
believe
it
does. My
own
experience of the Home
Office impressed upon me
how
important
it
was that the department should never
be confined to police and prisons, but
should deal with a variety of other problems
involving social administration
of
a human
and non-criminal character. If ever we
try
to take away from the Home Office
those of its powers which
do
not relate
to police and prisons, we shall injure the
good administration of these important
services themselves.
Sir
Frank
Newsam is to be congratulated
on having given
us
a volume which tells
the story of the work and administration
of the Home Office. There was an earlier
volume in
1925
in the Whitehall series,
written by
Sir
Edward Troup, which
I
remember reading to my great advantage
in earlier years. It was, however, necessary
that a new and more up-to-date volume
should be produced, and here
it
is.
I
am
glad to hear that Lord Strang
is
writing a volume on the Foreign Office
and that other Permanent Secretaries
and
senior officers are preparing volumes on
the work of their departments.
This
New
Whitehall series should be
of
great value.
Thanks
and congratulations are due to
the authors and publishers, and to the
Royal Institute of Public Administration.
mERT
MORRISON.
24
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