| Review of: | The Ideal of Public Service: Reflections on the Higher Civil Service in Britain by Barry J. O'Toole |
|---|---|
| Reviewed By: | Michael Hunt |
| Reviewed in: | Governance |
| Date accepted online: | 10/04/2008 |
| Published in print: | Volume 20, Issue 04, Pages 703-715 |
Book Reviews
The ideal of public service is, as Barry O'Toole notes (9), as old as philosophy itself. It could therefore be assumed that what constitutes that ideal might be reviewed over time in light of different philosophical understandings and which consequently result in different interpretations of the concept of responsible government. At the very least, it could be assumed that different pressures on government might lead to agreement about the need for changes to the previously accepted ideal. However, in most systems of stable representative government notions of the ideal are, in a general sense, fixed in the public consciousness and do not alter over time. Thus, a sense that the standards associated with the ideal are no longer being fully observed, however vaguely that ideal might be understood, almost inevitably leads to a loss of trust in government. Within the United Kingdom, there has been ample reason in the past 20 years for the public to lose some of their trust in government. The furor (at the time of writing this review) over the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and the associated payments to private individuals (apparently approved by the UK Defence Ministry) is only the latest in a series of issues that have provided cause for concern about the ideals underpinning the actions of British government.
O'Toole recognizes this problem and addresses it in this book. He suggests that the British civil service (at least since the time of the reforms of the mid-nineteenth century) has been informed by a philosophically based ideal, which has successfully characterized its work for most of the subsequent 150 years. The purpose of his book is to define that ideal and, acknowledging the pressures it has faced toward the end of the twentieth century, to suggest ways in which it might be preserved.
The book begins with a review of the concept of the common good, drawing on the works of Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas before examining the concept of public duty from the perspective of later philosophers such as Rousseau and, in particular, T. H. Green. From this understanding, O'Toole argues that those who held the most senior positions in the UK civil service during the second part of the nineteenth century and for most of the twentieth century regarded themselves as guardians of the public interest with a responsibility to offer their best counsel and advice to democratically elected politicians of any party. Through a process of socialization, these senior officials ensured that this view was shared by others in the elite group that comprised the "Administrative" class of the civil service. While O'Toole acknowledges that there may have been a subconscious element of a class-based self-interest in the nature of the advice offered, this does not alter his view that there was an ideal of disinterested public service to which such civil servants sought to adhere. Subsequent criticisms of the elite nature of the civil service in the middle of the twentieth century resulted in attempts to challenge some of the foundations on which these standards were laid, although not always successfully.
Finally, the book considers some of the changes that have taken place in the nature of government in the United Kingdom and the significance of these changes for the continuation of the ideal of public service. These changes include the adoption of business principles in conjunction with criticisms of the civil service for its lack of enterprise, and the loss of central control of the civil service, particularly in relation to appointments, pay, and grading. At the ministerial level, the flouting of long-standing constitutional conventions in relation to ministerial and collective responsibility and the introduction of "special advisers" have both impacted the relationships between ministers and their senior civil servants. The cumulative effect of these changes has inevitably affected the morale of the civil service with serious implications for its continuing sense of an ideal.
As O'Toole notes, various measures have been introduced in the past decade to try to reassert standards of public service but, while applauding the work of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration, he believes that these alone are insufficient to ensure the maintenance of the standards required of public servants. He suggests that special legislation is required for this purpose, supported by a Royal Commission established on a permanent basis to oversee the implementation of this legislation. Further work needs to be undertaken in order to spell out the powers of such a Commission and to suggest reasons why this solution would work more effectively than others that have been tried.
The book is polemical and none the worse for that. It is thoughtful, scholarly, and well timed. There is an urgent need to review the nature of the public service in the United Kingdom to ensure that it continues to maintain the high standards for which it was rightly admired during most of the twentieth century and this book makes a valuable contribution to that review. It deserves to be read by politicians and public servants as well as by those with an academic interest in the subject.