ABSTRACT
The Commission sometimes appeared to be behind the times, and for easily understandable reasons it was somewhat defensive. The challenges it faced in the second half of the twentieth century were different from the challenges in its earlier history, partly because there were changes in British society which included periods of more or less full employment and a decline in respect for careers in public service. In addition to the work of examining and recruiting, the Commission was involved in the development of new techniques to ensure the validity of assessment methods. The Research Unit became the basis of the Research Division — formed in 1969 after the incorporation of the Commission into the Civil Service Department. The range of research work was then extended to include follow-up and validation studies and the analysis of human factors affecting efficiency and job satisfaction. By the late 1980s it was known as the Recruitment Research Unit.
