Whitehall and the Civil Service: Issues for the Millennium and Beyond
| Author | Richard Parry |
| Published date | 01 July 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/095207670001500309 |
| Date | 01 July 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
REVIEW
Whitehall
and
the
Civil
Service:
Issues
for
the
Millennium
and
Beyond,
June
Burnham,
Sheffield:
Sheffield
Hallam
University
Press
and
the
Politics
Association
Resource
Centre
2000.
ISBN
0
86339
899
5,
pp.150,
no
price
indicated
June
Burnham
has
done
us
all
a
service
by
producing
this
up-to-date
guide
to
the
civil
service.
It
will
be
of
great
use
to
school
and
university
students
and
also
a
source
of
illicit
briefing
for
more
established
researchers
who
are
meant
to
know
all
of
this
but
are
struggling
to
keep
up
with
the
rapid
changes
in
the
civil
service
before
and
after
the
1997
election.
An
appendix
table
on
the
content
and
outcome
of
reform
initiatives
over
the
years
is
excellent.
The
book
gets
off
on
the
right
foot
by
the
imaginative
ploy
of
a
diagrammatic
map
of
the
physical
location
of
departments
around
Whitehall.
The
centrality
and
contiguity
of
the
Treasury,
the
Cabinet
Office
and
No
10
Downing
Street,
and
the
greater
or
lesser
dispersal
of
the
spending
departments
are
made
clear
here,
but
themes
of
high
politics
take
a
lesser
emphasis
in
the
text
that
follows.
This
is
a
nuts-and-bolts
book,
rooted
in
the
rules
and
procedures
that
regulate
civil
service
life.
As
such,
it
is
close
to
the
civil
service's
conception
of
itself.
Chapters
deal
with
recruitment,
training,
contracting,
anonymity
and
policy
advice.
The
writing
and
presentation
are
lucid
and
the
judgments
sound.
There
is
particularly
good
constitutional
and
historical
section,
and
a
welcome
compar-
ative
awareness
of
France,
Germany
and
other
systems.
Presentation
is
good,
with
clear
charts
and
tables,
with
the
curious
exception
of
a
variation
in
type
point
size
from
line
to
line
in
some
parts.
Within
the
textbook-type
material,
Burnham
has
some
substantial
sections
with
original
things
to
say
-
on
recruitment,
training,
accountability,
executive
agencies
and
the
alternatives
to
them,
equal
opportunities.
She
has
a
very
good
grasp
of
entry
patterns
into
the
career
service
and
of
how
they
have
changed
over
the
years.
She
is
generally
kind
to
the
civil
service's
attempts
to
reform
itself,
and
shies
away
from
structural
explanations
of
the
dysfunctions
of
the
official
machine.
Occasionally
the
focus
is
not
quite
up-to-date:
for
instance,
Burnham
mentions,
but
understates,
the
delegation
of
pay
and
gradings
by
departments,
which
has
now
gone
so
far
that
it
does
not
make
sense
to
speak
of
a
uniformity
Public
Policy
and
Administration
Volume
15
No.
3
Autumn
2000
107
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