
- 400 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About this book
Is our civil service fit for purpose? Michael Coolican takes John Reid's damning statement about the Home Office as his point of departure for a comprehensive overview and evaluation of the machinery behind the government and the people who make public services work on a daily basis.Beginning with Henry VIII's chief minister Thomas Cromwell, Michael Coolican takes us on an odyssey through the history of the British civil service, starting with a time when public positions were sold and traded through Royal Warrant. Coolican examines the radical reforms of the Victorian era which entrenched a culture of elitism, misogyny and distrust of high-quality data as a basis for decision making, that, in some areas, persists to this day.A former high-level civil servant with forty years of experience, Coolican has produced a pithy and, where necessary, ruthless analysis of the civil service and its relationship with government, especially at Cabinet level, bringing to bear detailed and extensive research informed by a true insider.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Contents
- Foreword by the Rt Hon. Lord Lilley of Offa
- Chapter 1: In the Beginning
- Chapter 2: Jobs for the Boys
- Chapter 3: The Company Men
- Chapter 4: The Balliol Conspiracy
- Chapter 5: The Northcote–Trevelyan Report
- Chapter 6: No Tradesmen!
- Chapter 7: And No Women Either!
- Chapter 8: And the Consequences Were…
- Chapter 9: What Do All These People Do?
- Chapter 10: Facts and Figures
- Chapter 11: Fads and Fancies
- Chapter 12: People and Power
- Chapter 13: The Agenda Benders
- Chapter 14: Some Whitehall Farces
- Chapter 15: Where Will It All End?
- Bibliography
- Note on the Sources
- Index
- Copyright