Britain: An official handbook > 1956

58 BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
The Ministry of Health and Local Government
In addition to its work in connection with the National Health Service, the
Department is responsible for the central administration of local government
services and for housing.
The Ministry of Labour and National Insurance
The Ministry is responsible for the administration of the Factories Acts and other
legislation connected with industrial health and welfare; for the promotion of
joint organizations for the settlement of industrial questions and of machinery of
conciliation in industrial disputes; for the administration of local employment
offices and the machinery for dealing with employment questions of all kinds; for
the administration of the National Insurance Act and the National Insurance
(Industrial Injuries) Act, and of the Family Allowances Act; and for carrying out
certain statutory functions in connection with the National Assistance Scheme in
conjunction with the National Assistance Board for Northern Ireland.
THE CIVIL SERVICE
A civil servant in Britain is a servant of the Crown (not being the holder of a
political or judicial office), who is employed in a civil capacity and whose remunera¬
tion is found wholly and directly out of moneys voted by Parliament. The number
of civil servants under this definition amounts to more than a million; for it
includes some 425,000 Government industrial employees in such establishments as
Royal Ordnance factories and Admiralty dockyards. The term ‘ Civil Service ’ is,
however, generally used only to cover ‘ non-industrial ’ members of the staffs of the
various Government Departments.1 At the end of September 1955 the total number
of non-industrial civil servants employed in all Departments, at home and overseas,
was 636,098; nearly one-third of this total are women.
Although the civil servant is legally a servant of the Crown, in practice he serves
the Minister in charge of the Department in which he works, by advising in the
formulation of policy and by carrying out policy decisions once they have been
taken. From time to time the Minister may change, but the civil servant remains
to serve his successor. In Britain changes of government do not involve changes in
departmental staff, and this continuity makes for administrative stability.
Development of the Modern Civil Service
The Civil Service in its present form is a product of the past one hundred years.
Before then, Departments were free to choose their own staffs, qualifying standards
were unknown, there was no central supervision, and political jobbery was rife.
Measures of reform instigated during the nineteenth century (mainly as the result
of a report on the Organisation of the Permanent Civil Service by Sir Stafford
Northcote, Secretary of the Board of Trade, and Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, an
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, which was published in 1854) included the
substitution of open competition for the practice of obtaining Civil Service appoint¬
ments by favour or purchase, and the establishment of an independent body, known
as the Civil Service Commission, to organize recruitment to the service. The great
expansion in State planning which has taken place during the last fifty years, and
the consequent expansion in the numbers of civil servants and the scope of their
duties, have led to further reorganization. During the last few decades, recruitment
1 Working in the United Kingdom, and also overseas in the Foreign Service (see p. 46)
and for other Government Departments such as the Commonwealth Relations Office
(see p. 44).