PRIVATE GAIN AND PUBLIC SERVICE. The Association of First Division Civil Servants by Barry J O'Toole
| Author | Lord Croham |
| Date | 01 March 1990 |
| DOI | 10.1177/095207679000500107 |
| Published date | 01 March 1990 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
71
PRIVATE
GAIN
AND
PUBLIC
SERVICE.
The
Association
of
First
Division
Civil
Servants
by
Barry
J
O’Toole
This
book
considers
the
reasons
why
the
First
Division
Association
of
Civil
Servants
(FDA),
potentially
representing
the
most
senior
employees
of
the
British
Civil
Service,
developed
from
a
voluntary
association
to
a
trade
union.
The
founding
members
of
the
FDA
in
1919
probably
saw
it
as a
semi-
professional
association
aiming
to
ensure
that
the
duty
to
the
state
which
its
members
accepted
as
a
primary
obligation
was
not
unfairly
exploited
by
governments.
Seventy
years
later,
the
Association
had
become
a
fully
fledged
trade
union
to
the
extent
that
it
had
been
affiliated
to
the
TUC,
its
General
Secretary
had
been
elected
as
a
member
of
the
TUC’s
General
Council
and
it
had
taken
part
in
industrial
action.
Given
the
role
which
top
civil
servants
have
to
perform
in
government,
this
has
suggested
the
question,
reflected
in
the
book’s
title,
whether
private
gain
now
takes
precedence
over
public
service.
Barry
O’Toole
appears
less
interested
in
examining
all
the
implications
of
this
question
than
in
following
the
transformation
of
the
FDA
into
a
fully-fledged
trade
union,
using
as
a
touchstone
a
definition
of
an
’ideal
union’.
He
tends
to
underestimate
the
significance
of
the
role
of
FDA
members
and
their
rel3ttf’Bl1ships
with
government
ministers,
combined
with
the
overriding
imperative
that
the
Civil
Service
should be
politically
neutral.
He
argues
that,
because
the
FDA’s
main
concern
has
throughout
been
about
pay and
conditions
of
employment
rather
than
with
the
standards
of
service
to
the
public,
it
has
always
been
more
like
a
union
than
a
professional
association.
But
this
is
not
conclusive
because
most
senior
civil
servants
would
think
themselves
better
able
to
influence
the
quality
of
public
service
and
the
efficiency
of
government
from
within
their
own
departments
rather
than
through
a
staff
association.
Right
from
the
start
the
FDA
had
the
problem
that
some
of
the
most
senior
members
of
the
grade
it
was
seeking
to
represent
were
managers
of
the
Civil
Service
and
were
required
to
conduct
the
pay
negotiations
with
the
Staff
Side
on
behalf
of
ministers.
In
this
capacity,
whether
or
not
they
were
members
of
the
FDA,
they
would
nearly
always
feel
obliged
to
put
loyalty
to
ministers
and
considerations
of
national
interest
before
the
interests
of
their
colleagues
as
employees.
Often
they
were
embarrassed
when
the
Association
was
seeking
to
put
to
them
the
case
for
the
higher
grades;
sometimes
they
would
refuse
to
see
the
Association
unless
it
was
part
of
a
delegation
from
the
Staff
Side
as
a
whole.
Higher
grades
pay
has
always
been
politically
sensitive.
Negotiating
difficulties
have
been
aggravated
by
our
traditional
unwillingness
to
pay
either
Ministers
or
Members
of
Parliament
a
level
of remuneration
compatible
with
the
burdens
they
carry.
As
a
result,
politicians
have
been
more
likely
to
regard
civil
servants’
salaries
(and
indeed
all
the
higher
salaries
in
public
services
and
nationalised
industries)
as
over-generous
compared
with
their
own
salaries
rather
than
as
non-
competitive
with
private
sector
salaries.
For
these
reasons,
several
attempts
have
been
made
during
the
lifetime
of
the
FDA
to
find
approaches
which
would
both
reduce
the
potential
range
of
civil
service
pay
bargaining
and
provide
a
better
public
justification
for
pay
settlements.
The
most
important
of
these,
following
the
1951
Royal
Commission,
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