The Civil Service

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The Civil Service

The makings of civil service are the civil servants. Civil servants

are servants to the crown, which therefore means that they are working

for the monarchy. Civil servants are employed in a civil capacity.

They are paid to do their job from government money from the ‘public

purse’. The main job criteria of the civil servants are that they are

basically working for the people. Mps, local government officers and

members of the armed forces are not civil servants; they do not work

for civilians.

The civil service is built up vastly and contains over 3000 senior

policy advisors who are advice ministers for legislation. As there are

many civil servants, the best structure is a hierarchy; these are

different levels of civil servants within the civil service:

* Permanent secretaries

* Deputy secretaries

* Under secretaries

* Assistant secretaries

* Principals

The permanent secretaries at the top of the list have the most power

hence the principals have the least.

Each member of the civil service must sign the official secrets act.

This is done to ensure that any secrets that parliament have are no

way made public. In the civil service there are higher and lower

levels of secrecy.

In 1982 Clive Ponting had a senior position within the ministry of

defence, during this time Britain were with war with Argentina over

the Falkland Island. During the war Ms Thatcher had ordered to strike

a ship with a torpedo, which had not been part of the exclusion zone

that she had previously imposed, Clive Ponting felt that as a person

in his position he had to say something and speak out sa...

... middle of paper ...

...nisters have limited access to other information

and advice and rely on the civil servants, this subsequently results

in an awful lot of power for civil servants, power which in theory

they should not really have

To conclude the civil service is an extremely important branch within

the government, they have an extremely important job to do so it is

essential that they do their jobs adequately and do not breach the

official secrets document and remain politically impartial, civil

servants have an increased responsibility in their jobs due to

pressure and strains put on single ministers with a ration of 1

minister to 65 civil servants it is understandable to see why they now

have so much more power and are relied on an awful lot. As ministers

rely on them so much the mandarin are indeed who exercise the real

power.

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