ABSTRACT
Whilst most civil servants execute policies, more attention is devoted to those who help formulate policy. As policy advisers they are in very powerful positions to influence or indeed create policy. How powerful they are is a moot point, but their central role makes them the major target of organized pressure groups attempting to influence policy. Senior mandarins have recently felt under greater pressures from their political masters as their policy-making role is increasingly threatened with suggestions of outside political advisers taking on a much more major role (Cm 2627, 1994). Civil servants have also complained that ministers are ignoring their advice and findings if they do not fit in with predetermined plans and that the way to get on is to become ‘yes men’. The powers enjoyed by civil servants and the pressures experienced by them is the subject of this chapter.
