The Permanent Secretaries: Britain's Top Administrators

Harris, John S.; Garcia, Thomas V.

doi:10.2307/973928

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Thus whilst biographical studies are available on many political figures, they are notably absent on senior officials – as Normington wryly put it to us, “We rarely write autobiographies”. Furthermore, with some notable exceptions (Barberis, 1994, 1996; Eyvindr, 2012; Harris and Garcia, 1966; Neilson and Otte, 2012; Richards, 1997, 2009; Rhodes, 2005, 2011; Theakston and Fry, 1989) permanent secretaries have been the subject of scant research.…”

Section: What Do We Know Of the Civil Service?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reforming the Civil Service and revising the role of the mandarin in Britain: A view from the perspective of a study of eight permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Education between 1976 and 2011

Ribbins

Sherratt

2013

Public Policy and Administration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article summarises some problems currently faced by the Civil Service and considers how the June 2012 Reform Plan would address them. It focuses on what the Plan might mean for permanent secretaries and their future role in policy making. It seeks to supplement the research on which this aspect of the Plan and its recommendations can be reviewed. For this purpose it draws on a longitudinal study of the eight permanent secretaries at the Department for Education between 1975 and 2011. All were interviewed twice along with 35 relevant others involved in the policy process in education nationally. Following a discussion of the limited literature on permanent secretaries, aspects of the background and career of the eight are examined. Given the importance of "dual leadership" to the Plan, the time in office they had with the 16 Secretaries of State they served was often short -8 less than a year. To facilitate scrutiny of such issues an analytical framework of types is proposed varying according to how far a permanent secretary takes an active or passive part in policy. Examples of each type -making, resisting, shaping, sharing and taking -are discussed. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

show abstract

Section: What Do We Know Of the Civil Service?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reforming the Civil Service and revising the role of the mandarin in Britain: A view from the perspective of a study of eight permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Education between 1976 and 2011

Ribbins

Sherratt

2013

Public Policy and Administration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“… 9. Richards (1997: 74) summarizes the findings of surveys (Barberis, 1996; Harris and Garcia, 1966; Kelsall, 1955; Theakston and Fry, 1989) of the demographic characteristics of higher civil servants between 1870 and 1995 in terms of ‘shifts in age, gender, class, educational background and length of tenure in office’. …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Permanent Secretaries, Consensus and Centrism in National Policymaking in Education – Sir David Hancock and the Reform Act 1988

Ribbins¹,

Sherratt²

2012

Educational Management Administration & Leadership

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article seeks to clarify the place of policy studies in education in the meta-field that it terms LAMPS. It is argued that this canon of work has undervalued the merits of a humanistic approach and in doing so has tended to minimize the part played by people. To illustrate what might be possible, it reports on aspects of a longitudinal study, the first of its kind, that set out to examine, evaluate and categorize to what extent, and how, permanent secretaries influence policy. Based on recorded interviews with those who held this office at the DES between 1976 and 2002 and others (senior cabinet members, secretaries of state, junior ministers, special advisers) it argues that while the role of such senior civil servants can be described as ‘meta-political’ they do nevertheless influence policy in significant ways. As such it suggests that their praxis may be located on a continuum of ‘centrism’, five forms of which are identified. From this standpoint, much of the text represents a search for the architect/s of the Education Reform Act 1988 and in doing so focuses on the thinking and contribution of Sir David Hancock – its ‘principal project manager’.

show abstract

“…) The difference between the mainstream and an interpretive approach can be shown easily. There is a noteworthy literature on elites, such as permanent secretaries, that assumes we can read off the beliefs and practices of top civil servants from their institutional position and socioeconomic background (e.g., Barberis, 1996;Harris & Garcia, 1966;Richards, 1997;Theakston, 1999Theakston, , 2000Theakston & Fry, 1989). An interpretive approach denies that beliefs and practices can be so determined.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Everyday Life in a Ministry

Rhodes

2005

The American Review of Public Administration

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article seeks to answer two questions: What do we know about the work of ministers and permanent secretaries? How do we know what we know about ministers and permanent secretaries? To do so, it describes a research project on life at the top of British government departments and discusses the issues raised by trying to do research and write a political anthropology of the daily life of ministers and civil servants. The article has four sections. First, it surveys briefly the existing literature on ministers and top civil servants. Second, it describes the scope and methods of the project. Third, it reports some early findings. Finally, it reflects on the distinctive contribution of ethnographic research to understanding British government and the problems of elite interviewing, nonparticipant observation, and research on the powerful.

show abstract

The Permanent Secretaries: Britain's Top Administrators

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Reforming the Civil Service and revising the role of the mandarin in Britain: A view from the perspective of a study of eight permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Education between 1976 and 2011

Reforming the Civil Service and revising the role of the mandarin in Britain: A view from the perspective of a study of eight permanent secretaries at the Ministry of Education between 1976 and 2011

Permanent Secretaries, Consensus and Centrism in National Policymaking in Education – Sir David Hancock and the Reform Act 1988

Everyday Life in a Ministry

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About