ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the question of politicisation in relation to the British case. We begin by defining what politicisation means in the UK context, which might differ from its comparators. Second, we investigate how politicisation has manifested itself in the UK by applying Peters and Pierre’s framework (see Chapter 1 above). In the process, a number of themes are used to describe the changes taking place in the British case in relation to people, structures, attitudes and culture, behaviour and decision-making arenas. Finally some kind of assessment of recent changes is made, which focuses on the managerial capacity of the British executive, and the constitutional implications of new roles for and new expectations of civil servants. The British civil service is undoubtedly undergoing significant current change under the Blair government, as it has since the early 1980s. However, the British case illustrates that care is required in discussing politicisation in a comparative context – much of the British system remains intact and evidence of politicisation, where it exists, is located in certain specific spheres of the state often outside the traditional civil service itself. The chapter concludes that the British picture is a complex one, best characterised as a state responding to increasingly demanding politicians while attempting to adapt to a changing social and political environment which includes a consumerist electorate and scrutinising media, at the same time as preserving the highly regarded features of intelligence, impartiality, probity, selection and promotion on merit and public duty that characterise the British civil service.
