The Civil Service Commission 1855 ‐1991: A Bureau Biography

Citation

Hunt, M. (2008), "The Civil Service Commission 1855 ‐1991: A Bureau Biography", International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 21 No. 6, pp. 687-688. https://doi.org/10.1108/09513550810909221

In this important book Professor Chapman traces the development of an institution which, over a period of 136 years, exerted a significant influence on the culture and practices of the civil service, albeit one that has been largely unpublicised. Whilst it is inevitable that such a body would be heavily influenced by the conditions which surrounded its birth, the author demonstrates the way in which its attitudes, but not the core values it espoused, gradually changed throughout the course of its lifetime. These values, and the processes and procedures which they underpinned, made the Commission, by the middle of the twentieth century, a model to be copied by other countries.

Part One of the book traces the development of the Commission from its creation after the Northcote Trevelyan Report of 1854 until its effective demise in 1991. Part Two comprises a series of studies of issues relevant to the work of the Commission whilst Part Three provides an overview and conclusions. The book offers a thorough account of the development of new forms of selection procedures and the continuous attempt to ensure that the standards required and methods adopted for selection were both just in relation to individual cases as well as appropriate to the needs of the time. In the search for best practice the Commission forged a professional approach to personnel management which ensured its acceptability within the service as a whole, as well as being widely regarded in the private sector. Amongst other issues Chapman carefully considers the changing attitude of the Commission towards the employment and promotion of women in the service and also the way in which it responded to suggestions of bias in its selection procedures. He also reviews the Commission's attitude towards those civil servants (or ex civil servants) who attempted to produce autobiographies for publication. The correspondence on this has a curiously topical air.

The Commission was not, of course, immune from criticism and Chapman's book draws attention to the way in which it continuously felt the need to response to this. It was particularly hurt by the criticisms contained in the Report of the Fulton Committee in 1968 although Chapman suggests that some of these criticisms may have been a little unfair.

The “bureau biography” approach works well. Professor Chapman has made extensive use of material from the Public Records Office to provide a scholarly and very readable account of the life of an institution, the controversies with which it was inevitably engaged, and of the attitudes and beliefs of the people who worked within it. Those wishing to deepen their understanding of the attitudes and beliefs which underpinned the way in which Britain was governed in the twentieth century will learn much from this fascinating study.