ABSTRACT
Public administration in Britain takes place through a diversity of state agencies with varying histories, functions, and patterns of political control and accountability. These include the civil service (the central government bureaucracy); a large number of local bureaucracies serving an elective system of local government; another mammoth organisation administering the National Health Service (NHS) and, under the acronym ‘quango’, a diverse range of organisations responsible for a miscellany of administrative, consultative, advisory and regulatory roles. In addition there is a complex of tribunals, inquiries, an ombudsman system and the judiciary, which together dispense administrative justice.
