National Insurance and National Assistance Local Offices
| Published date | 01 December 1945 |
| Date | 01 December 1945 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1945.tb01932.x |
THE TRAINING
OF
CIVIL
SERVANTS
Thc
only
effect
of
the
inhibitions
of
the
Civil
Service
on
these
men
was
to
make
them more wary-if one may
borrow
words applied by
Mr.
Dale to
MO~L
Reading
Lord
Pq's
spec&
in
the Lords
of
19rh
February,
1941,
I
have
tried
without
success
to
think
how the
samc
persons
can
be avid
of
power and yet
shirk
responsibility.
His
picture
of
the
ad
servant
is
self-contradictory,
being
the picture of some strange monster like the Chimaera
of
Greek legend, a com-
pound
of
lion,
goat
and
serpent, breathing out not smoke and flames but,
in
a
leisurely way,
Departmental
Orders
at
the rate of
2,000
a year.
Nothing that has been said
should
be
taken
to imply that the
importance
of training
on
the job, the doing
of
day-today work,
is
not appreciated. The
quality and volume of
this
day-today work
are
not realised by the critics
of
the Service. Much is routine
and
can
be delegated. But there
is
much of
it
that
ds
for
the
anxious
weighing
of
pros
and
cons,
for the same temper of
just
dealing that is required
of
the judges in the
courts.
They, however, are
not expected to prepare with precision schemes of new legislation, and long-
term
programmes
for
preventing in advance the obliquities that come before
them in the
Courts
and for promoting
in
a
positive
way
the well-being
of
the
M~~OII.
As the
civil
Servant is now expected
to
perform
both
functions,
and
as the first function,
i.e.
the handling
of
individual
cases,
however di5cult and
important, may lead
to
a disconnected habit
of
mind,
a
preoccupation with
abnormalities, it is advisable to relieve
him
at times of part
of
this
day-today
work and
give
him
a
chance
to
acquire the habit
of
continuous
and constructive
thought as
secretary
to a
committee,
or by putting
him
to work
on
a Parlia-
mentary
Bill
(perhaps
the
best
work that
falls
to a civil servant)
or
by encourag-
ing him
to work out
a
thbmmething in the nature
of
practical, or even
fundamental research,
the
latter
being
preferable from
an
educational
point
of
view as
it
tends to eliminate that disease of occupation, the depamwatal mind.
The official Report
on
training
recommends in
selected
cases
a
period
of
sabbatical leave
in
the early
'thirties.
I
think
a
second
period
should
be
allowed,
as
Mr.
Dale suggests in Appendix
C
to
his
book,
between the ages
45-50.
Travel
alone will not shake a
man
out
of
his
official
groovewlzelum
non
aninnun
mutant
qui
tvrms
me
currwIYdDd
he should
be
expected to produce
MI
his
return
some kind
of
thesis or report
on
a subject
chosen
by
himself
and not too closely
connected with the
work
of the
&ce.
National Insurance
and
National
Assistance
Local
Offices
By
F.
Mmcus
ARMAN
Note.-This
article attempts to forecast and
discuss
the administration
of
those services for which the Minister
of
National Insurance will
be
responsible
to
Parliament.
The views expressed and the conclusions drawn
arc
those
of
the writer
as a private individual; they
do
not purport to
be
those
of
any Goverment
DeI>artmCIlt.
So
far as
is
possible the forecast
is
based
on
known
facts,
i.e.
on
statements
made in the White Paper, Gnd.
6550,
and
on
Ministerial pronouncements.
Pa
Notm
see
md
of
Paper.
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