How Is The Civil Service Changing?

The changes to the traditional role of civil servants are another source of evidence for the change in politicisation since 1979. Political commentators Bayliss and Dargie argue that the role of senior civil servants is beginning to change. By 1988, there was a trend towards a new role - that of 'new public manager' which adopts generic management skills that can be used to manage any organisation of service, rather than particular public service skills. This new type of civil servant asks what is to be done, why and how much it costs. In other words, new public managers run public services similar to the way that managers in the private sector run businesses. However, the senior civil service remains a careerist, centrally recruited and internally sustained system.

Open competition and increased external mobility are threats to the common culture of the civil service but, so far, they have achieved only a marginal impact. The senior civil service has preserved more of its traditional characteristics than it has adopted new ones.

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