Have reforms of the Civil Service since the 1950s rendered it more accountable?

The Civil Service in Britain underwent a significant but gradual expansion over the course of this century. The number of people employed by the government in what could be called an administrative role rose from 116,000 in 1901 to 575,000 in 1950, and reached a peak of around 690,000 by the time the Thatcher government came to power in 1979. Since then, there have been cuts in the number of civil servants in an attempt to increase efficiency. The rise over time is consistent with an increasingly interventionist role of government in the economy; it is no surprise that as governments turned from a laissez-faire attitude in the 19th century and beforehand with few public servants to one of increasing intervention and consequently a rise in number of administrators. Yet this is not to say that there has been a monolithic Civil Service that has grown beyond all capacity to be regulated and reformed. Various measures have been proposed, and indeed, implemented in order to control the growth of the service and make it both more efficient and accountable. How far these reforms have been successful is the topic of this discussion.
A major trend for reform since the late 50s that has persisted to this day has been the amalgamation of different departments with the intention of drawing on their similarity and need for co-operation to promote efficiency and thus benefit from economies of scale. With the winding down of Britain's colonial commitments, many departments were destined to merge; for example, the merging of the diplomatic service and the Foreign Office began in 1943, and in 1946 a single Ministry of Defence was formed. These amalgamations resulted from decline, but the expansion of the government's role in providing welfare saw another amalgamation, only this time one that resulted from expansion; Wilson merged the Departments of Health and Social Security to create the DHSS. Similarly, Major merged the Departments if Education and Employment. These are by no means changes that are set in concrete, as shown by Thatchers' splitting apart of the DHSS in 1988. But what do these "super-departments" mean for accountability; does the responsibility resting with one, as opposed to formerly two or more Secretaries of State mean that the Service is more accountable? I would suggest that in practice, it makes little difference, the chain of responsibility is the same, although the person to whom the civil servants are accountable is different, the system is not, and so it doesn't really matter which department they are in as to their accountability; the personality of the Minister and their willingness (or lack thereof) to own up to any mistakes would be the determining factor in deciding how accountable any particular branch of the civil service is with respect to how many departments there are.
When Labour was elected in 1964, Wilson was determined to overhaul as much of the country as he could, using the famous "white heat of technology." To prepare for this, he carried out wide-ranging enquires into all areas of politics, including the Civil Service. The Fulton Committee, which was set up in 1966 to examine the way the Service worked, reported in 1968, and made numerous criticisms and recommendations. In particular, it wanted the merging of clerical, administrative, and executive grades to create a uniform career ladder, something that would prevent an accumulation of power among a few elite members of the Service. The Fulton committee concentrated on the recruitment and training aspects as opposed to the structure of the Service; it deplored the Oxbridge bias in the upper echelons, especially the recruitment of large numbers of graduates from non-science subjects (especially modern history). It also slammed what it termed the "cult of the generalist," claiming that relevance should be an important factor during recruitment; too many civil servants possessed only general skills, and were not specialised enough for their posts. The committee wanted to see a more managerial style of civil service. The committee also called for more professionalism, and more scientific concern.
In order to facilitate the introduction of a managerial style in the Civil Service, the Civil Service College was set up in 1970, with a view to turning out graduates of the calibre of those produced by the �cole Nationale d'Administration (ENA) in France. However, its existence can be said to be symbolic rather than substantial; the majority of training still occurs within the Civil Service departments themselves. Furthermore, a Civil Service Department was set up in order to manage payments and staff levels more effectively and separate this management function from the economic and financial remits of the Treasury. However, the Fulton report was met by a hostile reception by many within the Service, not least because of the type of language it employed. As well as the cult of the generalist already referred to, it spoke of general administrators as "amateurs." Many of the recommendations were not implemented because it was left to the Civil Service itself to carry out the reforms; senior civil servants such as Sir William Armstrong defeated the key measures, and the Chancellor Roy Jenkins was reluctant to let the managerial functions of the Treasury be taken away. Eventually even those aspects that were changed were done away with; the Civil Service Department was abolished in 1981 by Mrs. Thatcher. The one area where there has been improvement is in the area of staff recruitment; no longer is there a pronounced Oxbridge bias, with many coming from Scottish and Welsh universities. In short, there is now a more meritocratic trend in the recruitment process. Perhaps the best reflection on the effectiveness of the Fulton committee was the 1976-7 House of Commons Expenditure Committee report that concluded that many of the recommendations of the Fulton report had been watered down or simply not implemented at all. The implications for accountability have thus, hardly changed because of the lack of change within the service at this time, although the increase in graduates and entrants from a wider range of universities does imply a reduction in the image of a select club. This improvement in image may help increase accountability, but not significantly so.
Indeed, one of the image problems that the Civil Service has is being perceived as the quintessential English gentleman in pinstripe suit, with a bowler hat and umbrella who commutes into and out of Whitehall every day. Not only is the fashion image false, but many civil servants are based outside London, and those within the capital are not based in Whitehall alone. However, despite assertions of such MPs as Crossman and Benn, it is also not true that the Civil Service is united in a conspiracy that seeks to gain power for itself. As has already been pointed out, the service is not a monolithic entity, and many of the departments within it are notoriously hostile to one another, especially the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury. This "creative tension" seeks to instil a sense of discipline and goal of efficiency within the service. Nonetheless, it is undeniable that the service is secretive; yet this is merely a reflection on its nature, and simply reflects the civil service's view that politicians should take responsibility for executive acts. There is also the need for national security, as many of the departments handle sensitive information. Hence the aura of mystique that has arisen around the service.
Since the end of the Second World War, the Civil Service has, in fact, done much to remove the barriers between itself and the public. In 1967, a Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration (also known as an Ombudsman) was set up to investigate claims referred to him by MPs of misconduct in the Civil Service. Certainly this could increase accountability, but only if the ordinary public were aware of his existence and were able to persuade heir MP to refer the matter in question for consideration by him. However, in theory this makes the service more accountable. Throughout the 1980s, Mrs. Thatcher drove for the use of plain English, and was not afraid to tell them when she considered the use of "officialese" inappropriate, writing "this is gibberish" in the margins of documents prepared by the civil service. Since the 1960s, there has been a general opening up of government, which has been accelerated rapidly over the last few years. The release of classified documents before the thirty year rule has expired is just one instance. The publication of the minutes between the Governor of the Bank of England and the Chancellor is another. The Central Statistical Office has aimed to make government statistics more readily accessible to the general public, and the ways in which MI5 and MI6 have been opened up to the press are revealing; the former director of MI5, Stella Rimmington, was filmed at work, the location of the offices is well-known, and MI5 even brought out a report on its activities and began recruiting by placing advertisements in national newspapers. The head of MI6 even held a press conference, only with no cameras allowed. Although the government attempted to get Peter Wright's "Spycatcher" book banned, it has since been reluctant to censor such publications. All of these show an increasing accountability of those areas of the Civil Service that have been the most covert in the past.
Finally, there is the "Next Steps" program, which appeared in February 1988. This was a report much like the Fulton one, which aimed to reform the Civil Service under Thatcher to make it more efficient (if not accountable). Its main recommendations were the creation of agencies that would implement government policy within a framework set by the appropriate department. It also rejected the unification of the Civil Service. The recommendations have been implemented rapidly, and many civil servants are enthusiastic about the new working conditions. However, the Matrix-Churchill affair, although started in the early eighties, still raises concerns about whether this new Civil Service is any more accountable than the one it leaves behind.