ABSTRACT
The old concept of the civil service was of a steady, reliable, honest, and impartial administrative machine. Added to this concept in recent years has been the requirement of the civil service to be business-like in its efficiency, effectiveness, and adaptability, and with enhanced capabilities for delivery and innovation. Some of this is captured in Boyle’s (1995a) remarks about the Irish civil service, when he diagnosed the need for a change in the culture towards innovation, and underlined civil service responsibilities for making sure new policies were effective in practice. In fact, he prescribed a civil service role as change agent in response to the developments that had been occurring. This change agent role entailed, in his opinion, taking government priorities and plans and developing a vision of a proposed change, planning the resources required for change, planning to overcome resistance to change, and leading the process of adapting to what was required by change.
