OBITUARY
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1987.tb00669.x |
| Date | 01 December 1987 |
| Author | D. J. Murray |
| Published date | 01 December 1987 |
OBITUARY
Norman Crowther
Hunt
1920-87
Norman Crowther Hunt, Lord Crowther-Hunt, died on
16
February 1987. For
more than twenty years he was an active promoter of reform in the machinery
of government and in the civil service. Not content with academic inquiry and
advocacy alone, he worked to carry through sigmficant changes. With
a
war record
which included a short period in the War Office, he went on to complete a history
degree and a doctoral thesis that was subsequently published as
Two
early political
associations: the Quakers and the dissenting deputies in the age
of
Sir Robert
Walpole.
Significantly his thesis
ran
counter to the contemporary interests of Sir
Lewis Namier in attending to the way outsiders sought to secure influence and
representation. He became a politics tutor at Exeter College, Oxford, and as a
sideline was increasingly involved in broadcast journalism both on radio and
television. Prior to the 1964 general election he presented the
BBC-TV
weekly politics
programme ‘Gallery’, and on radio he presented
a
three-part series on ’Cabinet
Government and the Civil Service’ (subsequently published as
Whitehall and
Beyond).
In this series he discussed first with Harold Wilson and then with
Jo
Grimond and Enoch Powell their views on how the machinery of Cabinet govern-
ment and the civil service should be reformed. The link with Harold Wilson led
Norman Hunt into becoming an active promoter of change following the formation
of Wilson’s government in 1964.
Norman Hunt was a member of the Fulton Committee, appointed in 1966
to
examine the structure, recruitment and management, including training, of
the Home Civil Service. His influence on the committee and on the report pub-
lished in 1968 was enhanced first by his being released from his post in Oxford
for a year and thus being able to work full-time; second by serving
as
leader
of the Management Consultancy Group; and third, and most unconventionally,
by the substantial part he played in preparing the initial drafts instead of leaving
these to be prepared by the officials assigned
to
the committee. Many aspects
of the report reflected the radical ideas which Norman Hunt shared with the
then Prime Minister, namely: the emphasis on the need to reform the civil service
so
that
it
could better perform the tasks
of
the late twentieth century; the emphases
on the importance of professionalism and on strengthening the specialists’ involve-
ment in general management; the importance attached
to
management training,
and to increasing opportunities for those in subordinate positions to secure
training and advancement; the need for accountable management by civil servants,
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