ABSTRACT
Some thirty-five years ago, when he wrote his book Anatomy of Britain, Anthony Sampson described the Treasury building, which, he had been assured by a messenger, contains a thousand rooms and nine miles of corridors, as ‘the central citadel of Whitehall’. He added: ‘If anyone were to wish to bring the British administration to a halt, it is on this building, rather than on parliament opposite, that he should drop his bomb’.1 The last few years of the twentieth century have brought significant changes in various aspects of the British system of government, but the changes have been at least as significant for the Treasury as they have for any other department. As this book was being completed the government’s private finance initiative (PFI) was having its effect on the very building in which the Treasury is housed: the Treasury is expected to vacate the building in 1998 and reoccupy part of it in 2001.2
As Sampson observed when writing about the Treasury, its building has special prestige (which, he entertainingly suggested, was indicated by the presence of window boxes with flowers), and it is not surprising that the sale of the building attracted comments and criticisms. However, for present purposes the sale indicates the significance of change in contemporary public administration and how quickly it can be implemented. Such changes now make stability and continuity, as reflected in the past writings of Sampson and others, including distinguished scholars, look rather dated. For example, Sir Ivor Jennings’ book on the Cabinet,3 first published in 1936, held an important position as a standard work on its subject for over thirty years, but it now seems rather odd that his chapter on ‘Treasury Control’ should begin with control of the civil service-though it was the Treasury’s most important function when Jennings was writing. Since then, the Civil Service Department has been created and abolished,4 and most modern textbooks would probably give pride of place, when dealing with central responsibilities
for the civil service, not to the Treasury but to the Cabinet Office (Office of Public Service).
