Civil Service Recruitment
| Author | PERCIVAL WATERFIELD |
| Date | 01 March 1958 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1958.tb01326.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1958 |
Civil
Service Recruitment
By SIR
PERCIVAL
WATERFIELD
The recent White Paper,
The
Recruitment
of
the Adminisnative
Class
of
the Home
Civil
Servics and the
Senior
Branch
of
the
Foreign
Service
(Cmnd.
232)
is
reviewed
by
Sir
Percival
Waterfield, who
was
First Civil
Sem’ce
commissioner
at thr
timb
of
the introduction
and
during the ear&
years
of
Method
II.
N
1944,l
when plans were being made for the resumption of recruitment
I
to the Administrative Class of the Civil Service after the war,
it
was
decided to make an important change in the pre-war system. The well-tried
method of examination, by testing a candidate’s academic studies through a
series
of
written papers, and his personality by a single interview before a
Board (now to be
known
as Method I), was to continue
;
but candidates who
were at least of Second Class Honours standard could choose instead to
compete by a new and shorter method (Method 11) based
on
interview, record
and
a few written tests
of
a general character. Candidates could compete by
either method or both. Shortly afterwards the Civil Service Commissioners,
with the approval
of
the Treasury, decided that the Board interview under
Method
I1
should be preceded by an elaborate series of tests and interviews
conducted by the Civil Service Selection Board (C.S.S.B.), an adaptation of
the wartime W.O.S.B., which was to form part
of
the Commissioners’
Department. The report of C.S.S.B.
on
each candidate would be available
to the Final Selection Board, meeting under the chairmanship
of
the First
Civil Service Commissioner. The new system was experimental, and was
to be reviewed after ten years. The present Report gives the results of that
review, together with the Government’s decision.
It
is
gratifying to learn that the Commissioners have recommended, and
the Government,
“
on
the evidence
so
far available,” have agreed, that the
Administrative Class should continue to be recruited by both methods.
Writing as one who has sat regularly (though not invariably)
on
both the
Final Boards (the
Final
Interview Board,
or
F.I.B., under Method
I,
and the
Final Selection Board, or F.S.B., under Method II),
I
wholeheartedly endorse
this conclusion. When normal recruitment to the Administrative Class was
resumed in
1948,
Method
I1
was
still
a noveltyJ2 and
it
was felt prudentto
limit the proportion of vacancies to be filled by
it
to
25
per cent. of the total
number offered in the open competition,a but since
1952
the proportion to
be filled in this way has been increased to about
50
per cent., and this practice
is
now confirmed by the Government statement.
‘It
is interesting to note that in both world wars the method of post-war recruitment
was decided upon by the British Government during the course
of
the struggle.
I
well
remember the astonishment of a German professor when
I
told
him
that the Leathes
Committee had been appointed to consider
this
question as early as
1917.
‘It
had been used for testing Reconstruction candidates
since
1945,
but
not,
of
course,
as
an alternative to Method
I.
aNot of the total number of vacancies to be filled in the year. Twenty per cent. of these
were reserved for limited competition among older candidates already
in
the
Service.
The method of recruitment at first was similar to Method
11,
but without the C.S.S.B.
tests. Later it
was
decided to send these Limited Competition candidates to C.S.S.B.
for testing
;
and more recently still those who wished to compete by Method
I
have been
allowed
to
do
so.
3
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