The Training of Civil Servants
| Date | 01 December 1945 |
| Published date | 01 December 1945 |
| Author | W. A. Ross |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1945.tb01931.x |
STAFF
WELFARE
IN
GOVERNMENT
DEPARTMENTS
And
now
we
come
to
the
most knotty problem
of
111.
How
and
wbere
are
departmental welfare
officers
to
be
recruited? Are they to
be
appohted by
sclectioo
from
existing otliars or are they
to
recruited from outside the
Service? It is
necessary
for
the
welfare officer
to
be familiar with departmental
rules and regulations, but it is also necessary for her to have a wide experience
of general social service activities and some technical knowledge
on
matters
affecting health,
such
as heating, lighting and ventilation,
if
her advice
is
to
be
of
value.
Can
the Civil mant acquire the latter by theoretical
training
more easily
than
the
outsider
can
pick up the former?
Ex~epti~~lly it may
be
possible to find a civil servant who has done volun-
tary
social
work
at a club
or
settlement,
or,
in
time to come, it may
well
be
that
with the
increasing
State control
of
social
services a welfare training inside f4e
Civil Service may
be
available, but civil servants come from every kind of home,
and it
is
essential that the welfare officer should
be
familiar
with living conditions
other than her
own,
and for
this
reason
somc
experience
in
family
case
work
is
vital, whether it
be
obtained as a result of work as
an
investigating officer in
the
Ministry
of
National Insurance, by seconding for some months to the C.O.S.
as
is
done in the
case
of hospital almoners or by
voluntary
work at a settlement.
The
officer
who
can
only apply her
foot
rule
to
otha people’s troubles
will
never make
a
good welfare oEcer, and where is the civil servant recruited before
the age
of
twenty to
gahi
experience of other standards of measurement unless
steps are taken to provide
it
from outside?‘
We are now
on
the eve of a great expansion
of
the Civil Service, possibly not
in
numbers, though that may happen, but an expansion
of
ideals and objectives.
Welfare
in
its widest
sense
should have a real part to play
in
this expansion,
and it is hoped that departments will take a long-term view
on
this
matter and
realise that
if
the Civil
Service
is to develop
a
more human approach to the
public it should
also
develop
a
less impersonal attitude towards its
own
employees.
The Training
of
Civil
Servants
By
W.
A.
Ross,
O.B.E.
THE
training
of
officials, whether belonging to the civil or the local govern-
ment service, has occupied the attention
of
the Institute since its inception.
Lord Haldane’s
inaugural
address in
1922
and
his
subsequent addresses, Lord
Milner’s address
reported
in
theyouma1
of
April,
1923,
and many other addresses
by notable statesmen
or
officials or business
men
deal
on
very
broad lines with
this
subject-notably Lord Stamp’s Presidential Address
in
October,
1937,
on
“
the Administrator and a Planned Society
”1
(XVI,
3).
The
Times
in a lengthy
leader
on
that address drew particular attention
to
one Sentence:
I
am quite
clear
that the official must be the mainspring of the new society, suggesting,
promoting, advising at every stage.” While not disputing that there
was
a
tendency in that direction,
The
Tim’
criticism was that the sentence and the
whole article
in
its general tenor ignored the existence
of
the Cabinet and
Parliament.
The
Times
also pointed out, what is obviously
me,
that the address
leads up
to
no
definite conclusion as to the new kind
of
trainiig,
if
any,
that is
1
The
rcfacnces
in
brackets
throughout
this
papu
are
to
the
Journal
d
the
Institute
UnDeSs
otherwise
stated.
117
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