SYMPOSIUM ON IMPROVING MANAGEMENT IN GOVERNMENT
| Author | GEOFFREY FRY,WILLIAM JENKINS,BRIAN RUTHERFORD,ANDREW FLYNN,ANDREW GRAY |
| Date | 01 December 1988 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1988.tb00704.x |
| Published date | 01 December 1988 |
SYMPOSIUM
ON
IMPROVING MANAGEMENT
IN
GOVERNMENT
GEOFFREY FRY, ANDREW
FLY",
ANDREW GRAY,
WILLIAM
JENKINS
AND
BRIAN
RUTHERFORD
INTRODUCTION
The decision to set up agencies
wi~lin
government departments represents the latest
in a
series
of determined moves to transform the management of government.
This
symposium provides an initial appraisal
of
the proposed changes.
Dr
Geoffrey
Fry examines the report of the Efficiency Unit,
Improving Management in
Government: the Next
Steps
(1988).
Andrew
Flynn
and his colleagues examine
the Treasury and Civil Service Committee report,
Civil Service Management
Reform: the Next Steps
(HC
494-1 and 11,1987-88). The pace and scale of change
remains to be seen. Nonetheless, it is clear that
The Next Steps
could well herald
a major onslaught on the conventional organization of the civil service.
OUTLINING
'THE
NEXT
STEPS'
That the philosophies represented by the Financial Management Initiative and the
career civil service as conventionally
organized
were incompatible, certainly
within
the existing structure of central government,
was
obvious by the end
of
the second
Thatcher government in 1987.
If
that Conservative government wished to press
forward with what some saw as 'revolutionary' change in the civil service, then
the reconstructions both of government departments and
of
the service were
logically
The
Next
Steps.
This article analyses the Ibbs report and the Treasury's
proposals for the civil service contained in
Working Patterns,
recognizing their
'revolutionary' potential,
if
fully implemented.
Today,
a
management revolution
is
already underway in the Civil Service which
will
greatly increase its effectiveness', a leading
civil
servant, Anne Mueller, then
of
the Cabinet Office, observed in 1985:
Public Administration
Vol.
66
Winter 1988 (429-445)
0
1988 Royal Institute
of
Public Administration ISSN 0033-3298
$3.00
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