The potential lessons of a contemporary history of Whitehallstretch far and wide (original) (raw)

Women and Whitehall: gender and the Civil Service since 1979

Many accounts of the Civil Service since 1979 have focused on the significant changes that have occurred in its size, shape and organisational structure. Less attention has been paid to the people who worked in Whitehall throughout this period, what it felt like to be a Civil Servant and how this changed over time. Before 1979 there had only been three women permanent secretaries in the history of the Civil Service, in 1979 there were none. Whitehall gradually became more gender balanced over the next three decades, and in early 2011 half of department-heading permanent secretaries were women. The statistics tell a story about how Whitehall changed in these years, but it is also important to ask how it felt to be a female in Whitehall throughout the period. In this September 2015 report, Women and Whitehall: Gender and the Civil Service since 1979, Joe Devanny and Cath Haddon look at the experience of women officials in Whitehall and the ways in which the Civil Service has become more gender balanced, both overall and grade-by-grade, since 1979. We interviewed 29 current and former senior officials, from those who joined the Civil Service in 1961 to those who joined in the 2000s. This report draws on their reflections and views, illuminating the lived experience of several generations of Whitehall’s women. It explores their career paths, the initiatives to address gender and other diversity and explores the idea of a Whitehall ‘culture’ and whether it presented an obstacle for women (and some men) to overcome. This report forms part of the Contemporary History of Whitehall project, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded collaboration between the Policy Institute at King’s College London and the Institute for Government. The project explores the ways in which Whitehall changed between 1979 and 2010, and seeks to make the history of Whitehall relevant to today’s policy makers.

Studying British Government: Reconstructing the Research Agenda

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 1999

This article seeks to place the study of British government in a broader context by exploring the potential contribution of an anti-foundational epistemology. We seek to ‘reinvent’ a self-conscious, sceptical and tentative approach rooted in philosophy and history. The first section defines the Westminster model and the family of linked narratives: traditional sceptics, social science, radical theory, new public management. The second section outlines an anti-foundational epistemology, focusing on the notions of traditions, narratives, de-centering and dilemmas. The third section applies this approach to one prominent school of thought about British government: policy networks. We argue that an anti-foundational approach will decenter networks, shifting the locus of analysis from the institutions to individuals, and focus on dilemmas to explain how networks change. Finally, we conclude there is no essentialist account of British government, only complex and diverse narratives, and n...

Sir Humphrey and the professors: what does Whitehall want from academics?

2014

Executive summaryWhat Do Policy-Makers Want From Academics?A Survey of Senior Civil Servants Views on the Accessibility and Utility of Academic Research and ExpertiseWhat do (civil service) policy-makers want from academics? A seemingly simple question, and one to which you would already think we had a pretty good answer.Academia represents a very rich source of ideas, facts and theories about how public policies of all sorts might work (or not). Somewhere around 25,000 to 50,000 UK academics work on specifically policy-relevant areas ? this represents a massive pool of knowledge that could help policy-makers.Despite this obvious situation, actually very little is known precisely about how academia and policy-makers interact. There are some research projects that have explored the issue, but these have mostly been case studies from which it is hard to generalize. We decided to ask the whole of the British Senior Civil Service (SCS) how they relate to academic research and expertise....

Governance in Whitehall

Public Administration, 2002

Governance theory raises conceptual and theoretical questions about the coordination of complex social systems and the evolving role of the state within that process. A central aspect of the governance debate focuses on the ability of national governments to address salient social issues. This article examines the British Labour governments' attempts to facilitate cross-departmental inter-organizational collaboration within Whitehall in an attempt to develop innovative responses to seemingly intractable social problems. The government's desire and strategy to increase its capacity to orchestrate 'joined-up' government can be interpreted as both an acceptance and a response to the challenges of modern governance. The article locates the structural, procedural and cultural responses to this challenge within the theoretical and analytical framework of governance theory. It concludes by suggesting that meaningful change in the way public policy is designed and implemented may well demand a more deep seated reappraisal of the structure of Whitehall and the dominant values of the British political elite than is currently anticipated.

The Changing Nature of Central Government in Britain: the ESRC's Whitehall Programme

Public Policy and Administration, 1998

But not for long. The penitential cross of finance officer beckoned. The poacher became gamekeeper, or more prosaically, guardian of the budget. So he departed as consultations got underway. The report on the Workshop with its proposals for future research were discussed at several conferences and seminars. Paralleling this academic activity, the (then) Conservative government of John Major was encouraging openness. The Cabinet Office sent an observer to the York Workshop. Sir Robin Butler, Head of the Home Civil Service, gave the Frank Stacey Memorial Lecture at the University of York and signalled his willingness to encourage research on central government (Butler 1992). After exploratory meetings with the Cabinet Office on 7 September and 11 December 1992, the Cabinet Office and the ESRC arranged a further Workshop at the Civil Service College. These discussions led to a formal accord between the Cabinet Office and the ESRC with the former joining a joint steering and commissioning panel to develop a research programme. The Board of the ESRC

Revisiting Politicization: Political Advisers and Public Servants in Westminster Systems

Governance

In recent times much has been made of the threat some argue is posed by political advisers to the impartiality of the Westminster civil service. Drawing on survey of senior New Zealand civil servants, this article examines the degree to which political advisers are perceived as a threat to civil service neutrality and describes the form taken by that threat as variously perceived. On the evidence reported, it is suggested that traditional understandings of “politicization” need to be reconceptualized if they are to fully account for the nature of the relationship between political and civil service advisers. To existing conceptions of politicization, therefore, the article proposes adding another: “administrative politicization,” allowing for different gradations of politicization to be identified, and enabling a nuanced assessment of the nature and extent of a risk to civil service neutrality that, the data suggest, is not as great as is sometimes alleged.