The Role of the Civil Service: A Traditional View in a Period of Change

From 1854 until the late 1960s the civil service developed greater uniformity and tighter central control. In the 1980s, that process was deliberately reversed, with the establishment of executive agencies and the delegation from the centre of many management responsibilities. The question of standards of conduct was not much considered when those changes were made: the need for efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of resources was given pre-eminent place. (Nolan, 1995, p. 57).