A civil list is a list of individuals to whom money is paid by the government, typically for service to the state or as honorary pensions. It is a term especially associated with the United Kingdom, and its former colonies and dominions. It was originally defined as expenses supporting the British monarchy .
59-663: The Civil Pages is a computer system that acts as a private social media site for the UK Civil Service . It was set up by The National Archives on behalf of the Cabinet Office . It debuted shortly after an incident where the head of MI6 was identified in a holiday snap on Facebook. The head of the Civil Service, Gus O'Donnell described civil pages as '... the Facebook of the Civil Service ... without
118-738: A Higher Salaries Commission (now known as the Remuneration Authority), an independent salary-setting body for public offices including judges. A standalone Higher Salaries Commission Act 1977 extracted the commission from the Civil List Act. Some parts of the Act were also rehomed into the Constitution Act 1986 . A review of the Civil List Act 1979 was undertaken by the Law Commission from 2007 to 2010; eventually
177-560: A commercial approach to their tasks. However, the Government conceded that agency staff would remain civil servants, which diluted the radicalism of the reform. The approach seems somewhat similar to the Swedish model, though no influence from Sweden has ever been acknowledged. The Next Steps Initiative took some years to get off the ground, and progress was patchy. Significant change was achieved, although agencies never really achieved
236-640: A new Sovereign Support Grant linked to a portion of the revenue of the Crown Estate". The Crown Estate is a statutory corporation , run on commercial lines by the Crown Estate Commissioners and generates revenue for HM Treasury every year (an income surplus of £210.7 million for the year ended 31 March 2010). This income is received by the Crown and given to the state as a result of the agreement reached in 1760 that has been renewed at
295-411: A new approach to delivery featuring clear targets and personal responsibility. Without any statutory change, the managerial functions of Ministries would be hived off into Executive Agencies , with clear Framework Documents setting out their objectives, and whose chief executives would be made accountable directly (in some cases to Parliament) for performance. Agencies were to, as far as possible, take
354-704: A personal capacity, are paid from the Civil List. Senior civil servants may be called to account by Parliament . The civil service system in India is rank-based and does not follow the tenets of the position-based civil services. Article 45 of the 2011 Amended Moroccan Constitution states that the King shall have a civil list. A similar provision was contained in Article 22 of the 1996 Amended Moroccan Constitution. The New Zealand Constitution Act 1852 (an enactment of
413-405: Is often said to have received a civil list pension, but his mother was the actual recipient. ) As of 1911, a sum of £1,200 was allotted each year from the Civil List, in addition to the pensions already in force. From a Return issued in 1908, the total of Civil List pensions payable in that year amounted to £24,665. In the financial year 2012-13 the annual cost of Civil List pensions paid to 53 people
472-788: The Acts of Union 1800 abolished the Parliament of Ireland , the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was retained in formal charge of the Irish executive based at Dublin Castle . The Irish Office in Whitehall liaised with Dublin Castle. Some British departments' area of operation extended to Ireland, while in other fields the Dublin department was separate from the Whitehall equivalent. Following
531-630: The Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), and they were in particular given charge of a series of Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) studies of policy efficiency and effectiveness. But, whether through lack of political will, or through passive resistance by a mandarinate which the report had suggested were "amateurs", Fulton failed. The Civil Service College equipped generalists with additional skills, but did not turn them into qualified professionals as ENA did in France. Recruits to
590-669: The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge , and Prince Harry ) received their income from the Duchy of Cornwall . The state duties and staff of other members of the Royal Family were funded from a parliamentary annuity, the amount of which was fully refunded by the Queen to the Treasury. The Queen's consort ( Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh ) received £359,000 per year. The last two decades of
649-745: The Houses of Parliament ; employees of the National Health Service (NHS); or staff of the Royal Household . As at the end of March 2021 there were 484,880 civil servants in the Civil Service, an increase of 6.23 per cent on the previous year. The Northern Ireland Civil Service is a separate civil service in the United Kingdom. the incorruptible spinal column of England The Offices of State grew in England, and later
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#1732773284957708-767: The Office of Works and the Navy Board grew large. Each had its own system and staff were appointed by purchase or patronage. By the 19th century, it became increasingly clear that these arrangements were not working. Under Charles Grant , the East India Company established the East India Company College at Haileybury near London, to train administrators, in 1806. The college was established on recommendation of officials in China who had seen
767-706: The Parliament of the United Kingdom ) granted self-government to the Colony of New Zealand and made provision for sums payable to the monarch. Various Civil List enactments were passed, repealed and replaced over the next hundred years which provided for permanent appropriations of Parliament to fund to the Governor-General , Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers , Members of Parliament and the judiciary. The Civil List Act 1950 provided for salaries and allowances of members of Parliament to be fixed by Order in Council on
826-723: The Property Services Agency and the Crown Suppliers , were being dismantled or sold off. Next, shortly after Thatcher left office, in July 1991, a new programme of market-testing of central government services began, with the White Paper Competing for Quality (Cm 1730). Five-yearly or three-yearly policy and finance reviews of all agencies and other public bodies were instituted, where the first question to be answered (the "prior options exercise")
885-792: The United Kingdom , the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government , the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government , which is led by a cabinet of ministers chosen by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . As in other states that employ the Westminster political system ,
944-525: The imperial examination system. In government, a civil service, replacing patronage with examination, similar to the Chinese system, was advocated a number of times over the next several decades. William Ewart Gladstone , in 1850, an opposition member, sought a more efficient system based on expertise rather than favouritism. The East India Company provided a model for Stafford Northcote , private Secretary to Gladstone who, with Charles Trevelyan , drafted
1003-488: The "fast stream" recruitment process for accessing the upper echelons should be made more flexible, to encourage candidates from less privileged backgrounds. The new Department was set up by Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labour Government in 1968 and named the Civil Service Department , known as CSD. Wilson himself took on the role of Minister for the Civil Service (which has continued to be a portfolio of
1062-487: The Civil List were marked by surpluses and deficits. Surpluses in the 1991–2000 Civil List caused by low inflation and the efforts of the Queen and her staff to make the Royal Household more efficient led to the accrual of a £35.3 million reserve by late 2000. Consequently, the Civil List was fixed at £7.9 million annually in 2001, the same amount as in 1991, and remained at that level until its abolition. The reserve
1121-564: The Civil Service consisted of essential services, and that the "mandarins" (senior civil servants) needed to focus on efficiency and management rather than on policy advice. In late 1981 the Prime Minister announced the abolition of the Civil Service Department, transferring power over the Civil Service to the Prime Minister's Office and Cabinet Office . The Priestley Commission principle of pay comparability with
1180-523: The Civil Service — often known by the metonym of Whitehall — forms an inseparable part of the British government . The executive decisions of government ministers are implemented by the Civil Service. Civil servants are employees of the Crown and not of the British parliament . Civil servants also have some traditional and statutory responsibilities which to some extent protect them from being used for
1239-706: The Prime Minister), while the first Minister in Charge of the Civil Service Department was Cabinet Minister Lord Shackleton, also Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal. The first Permanent Secretary was Sir William Armstrong, who moved over from his post as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury. After the 1970 General Election, new Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath appointed Lord Jellicoe in Lord Shackleton's place. Into Heath 's Downing Street came
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#17327732849571298-466: The Second World War demands for change grew again. There was a concern (illustrated in C. P. Snow 's Strangers and Brothers series of novels) that technical and scientific expertise was mushrooming, to a point at which the "good all-rounder" culture of the administrative civil servant with a classics or other arts degree could no longer properly engage with it: as late as 1963, for example,
1357-480: The Treasury had just 19 trained economists. The times were, moreover, ones of keen respect for technocracy, with the mass mobilisation of war having worked effectively, and the French National Plan apparently delivering economic success. And there was also a feeling which would not go away, following the war and the radical social reforms of the 1945 Labour government, that the so-called " mandarins " of
1416-471: The United Kingdom centred around the street Whitehall , hence the metonym. Initially, they were little more than secretariats for their leaders, who held positions at court . They were chosen by the king on the advice of a patron, and typically replaced when their patron lost influence. In the 18th century, in response to the growth of the British Empire and economic changes, institutions such as
1475-625: The beginning of each subsequent reign. The Sovereign Grant Act 2011 received royal assent on 18 October 2011. Under this Act, the Sovereign Grant now funds all of the official expenditure of the monarchy, not just the expenditure previously borne by the Civil List. These are pensions traditionally granted by the Sovereign from the Civil List upon the recommendation of the First Lord of the Treasury . The Civil List Act 1837 applied
1534-567: The condition that any new pensions should be "granted to such persons only as have just claims on the royal beneficence or who by their personal services to the Crown, or by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their sovereign and the gratitude of their country." Famous recipients include William Wordsworth , William Barnes , Geraldine Jewsbury , Margaret Oliphant , Christopher Logue , and Molly Parkin . ( Lord Byron
1593-501: The efficiency scrutiny programme and with a wider focus on corporate planning, efficiency and objective-setting. Progress initially was sluggish, but in due course MINIS-style business planning became standard, and delegated budgets were introduced, so that individual managers were held much more accountable for meeting objectives, and for the first time for the resources they used to do so. Performance-related pay began in December 1984,
1652-414: The expenses of the Royal Household and some of the costs of the civil government. George III, however, retained the income from the Duchy of Lancaster . On the 1830 accession of William IV , the sum voted for the Civil List was restricted to the expenses of the Royal Household, removing any residual responsibilities associated with the cost of the civil government. This finally removed any links between
1711-479: The fast stream self-selected, with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge still producing a large majority of successful English candidates, since the system continued to favour the tutorial system at Oxbridge while to an extent the Scottish Ancient universities educated a good proportion of recruits from north of the border. The younger mandarins found excuses to avoid managerial jobs in favour of
1770-587: The governors worried that if the Assembly was given this power, then certain positions would be delisted. Eventually under the Baldwin - Lafontaine government, a compromise was reached with Lord Elgin . The term civil list is no longer commonly used to describe the payment of civil servants in Canada, who are covered in the budgets of executive agencies. Civil Services of India civil servant bureaucrats, in
1829-737: The grant had nothing to do with the expenses of the civil government. In 1931, George V decided to eschew the £50,000 due to him from the Civil List as a result of the Great Depression . As Keeper of the Privy Purse , Sir Frederick Ponsonby wrote to Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald to say that George had felt it was possible to reject the grant by "exercise of the most rigid economy" and that Queen Mary and other royal family members were "desirous that reductions in these grants should be made during this time of national crisis". The last British monarch to receive Civil List payments
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1888-452: The higher civil service were too remote from the people. Indeed, between 1948 and 1963 only three per cent of the recruits to the administrative class came from the working classes , and in 1966 more than half of the administrators at undersecretary level and above had been privately educated. Lord Fulton 's committee reported in 1968. He found that administrators were not professional enough, and in particular lacked management skills; that
1947-601: The holder of certain other offices in respect of whose tenure of office special provision has been made; [or] a servant of the Crown in a personal capacity paid from the Civil List ". As such, the civil service does not include government ministers (who are politically appointed); members of the British Armed Forces ; police officers ; officers of local government authorities ; employees of some non-departmental public bodies ; officers or staff of either of
2006-485: The key report in 1854. The Northcote–Trevelyan Report recommended a permanent, unified, politically neutral civil service, with appointments made on merit, and a clear division between staff responsible for routine ("mechanical") and those engaged in policy formulation and implementation ("administrative") work. The report was not implemented, but it came as the bureaucratic chaos in the Crimean War demonstrated that
2065-417: The level of autonomy envisaged at the start. By 5 April 1993, 89 agencies had been established, and contained over 260,000 civil servants, some 49 per cent of the total. The focus on smaller, more accountable, units revived the keenness of Ministerial interest in the perceived efficiencies of the private sector. Already in the late 1980s, some common services once set up to capture economies of scale, such as
2124-841: The man in the Speedos'. The system is based on Confluence, an enterprise wiki from Atlassian and was developed by Adaptavist. This article related to government in the United Kingdom or its constituent countries is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Civil Service (United Kingdom) King Charles III [REDACTED] William, Prince of Wales [REDACTED] Charles III ( King-in-Council ) [REDACTED] Starmer ministry ( L ) Keir Starmer ( L ) Angela Rayner ( L ) ( King-in-Parliament ) [REDACTED] Charles III [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Lord Reed The Lord Hodge Andrew Bailey Monetary Policy Committee In
2183-609: The military was as backward as the civil service. A Civil Service Commission was set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage as Parliament passed an Act "to relieve the East India Company from the obligation to maintain the College at Haileybury". Prime Minister Gladstone took the decisive step in 1870 with his Order in Council to implement the Northcote-Trevelyan proposals. This system
2242-539: The more prestigious postings. The generalists remained on top, and the specialists on tap. Margaret Thatcher came to office in 1979 believing in free markets as a better social system in many areas than the state: government should be small but active. Many of her ministers were suspicious of the civil service, in light of public choice research that suggested public servants (as well as elected officials themselves) tend to act in ways that seek to increase their own power and budgets. She immediately set about reducing
2301-459: The ordinary expenses of the state managed by the Exchequer . In 1697 , Parliament under William III fixed the Crown 's peacetime revenue at £1,200,000 per year; of this about £700,000 was appropriated towards the Civil List. The sovereigns were expected to use this to defray some of the costs of running the civil government (such as the Civil Service, judges' and ambassadors' salaries) and
2360-512: The parent Citizen's Charter programme itself. The position of Minister for the Civil Service is not part of the Civil Service as it is a political position which has always been held by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom . Civil List In the United Kingdom, the Civil List was, until 2011, the annual grant that covered some expenses associated with the Sovereign performing their official duties, including those for staff salaries, state visits, public engagements, ceremonial functions and
2419-414: The payment of pensions, as well as the expenses of the Royal Household and the sovereign's personal expenses. It was from this that the term "Civil List" arose, to distinguish it from the statement of military and naval expenses which were funded through special taxation. The 1760 accession of George III marked a significant change in royal finances. As his predecessor, George II, had failed to meet all of
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2478-412: The political advantage of the party in power. Senior civil servants may be called to account to Parliament. In general use, the term civil servant in the United Kingdom does not include all public sector employees. Although there is no fixed legal definition, the term is usually defined as a " servant of the Crown working in a civil capacity who is not the holder of a political (or judicial ) office;
2537-415: The position of technical and scientific experts needed to be rationalised and enhanced; and that the service was indeed too remote. His 158 recommendations included the introduction of a unified grading system for all categories of staff, a Civil Service College and a central policy planning unit. He also said that control of the service should be taken from the Treasury, and given to a new Department, and that
2596-795: The private sector was abandoned in February 1982. Meanwhile, Michael Heseltine was introducing a comprehensive system of corporate and business planning (known as MINIS) first in the Department of the Environment and then in the Ministry of Defence . This led to the Financial Management Initiative , launched in September 1982 ( Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Civil Service (Cmnd 8616)) as an umbrella for
2655-425: The recommendation of a royal commission, where previously they had been set at intervals by legislation, and also codified the convention that a Minister of the Crown must be a member of Parliament. It was amended in 1964 to provide for an annuity for former prime ministers and the widows of former prime ministers. The Civil List Act 1979 , succeeding the 1950 Act, was the final enactment of that name. It provided for
2714-408: The size of the civil service, cutting numbers from 732,000 to 594,000 over her first seven years in office. Derek Rayner , the former chief executive of Marks & Spencer , was appointed as an efficiency expert with the Prime Minister's personal backing; he identified numerous problems with the Civil Service, arguing that only three billion of the eight billion pounds a year spent at that time by
2773-465: The sovereign and the cost of the civil government. On the accession of Queen Victoria , the Civil List Act 1837 —which reiterated the principles of the civil list system and specified all prior Acts as in force—was passed. Upon the accession of subsequent monarchs down to Queen Elizabeth II , this constitutional arrangement was confirmed, but the historical term "Civil List" remained even though
2832-484: The specific costs of the civil government in accordance with the previous arrangement, it was decided by the Civil List Act 1760 that George III would surrender the hereditary revenues from the Crown Estate to Parliament for the duration of his reign, and in return Parliament would assume responsibility for most of the costs of the civil government. Parliament would continue to pay the Civil List, which would defray
2891-693: The upkeep of the Royal Households . The cost of transport and security for the Royal Family , together with property maintenance and other sundry expenses, were covered by separate grants from individual government departments. The Civil List was abolished under the Sovereign Grant Act 2011 . Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the expenses relating to the support of the monarch were largely separated from
2950-547: Was Elizabeth II. The Civil List for her reign lasted from her accession in 1952 until its abolition in 2012. During this period the Queen, as head of state, used the Civil List to defray some of the official expenditure of the monarchy. Only the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen Mother ever received direct funding from the Civil List. The then Prince of Wales and his immediate family (the Duchess of Cornwall ,
3009-468: Was believed with the Thatcher reforms that efficiency was improving. But there was still a perception of carelessness and lack of responsiveness in the quality of public services. The government of John Major sought to tackle this with a Citizen's Charter programme. This sought to empower the service user, by setting out rights to standards in each service area, and arrangements for compensation when these were not met. An Office of Public Service and Science
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#17327732849573068-432: Was broadly endorsed by commissions chaired by Playfair (1874), Ridley (1886), MacDonnell (1914), Tomlin (1931) and Priestley (1955). The Northcote–Trevelyan model remained essentially stable for a hundred years. This was attributed to its success in removing corruption, delivering public services, even under stress of war, and responding effectively to political change. Patrick Diamond argues: The Northcote-Trevelyan model
3127-428: Was built on thereafter, and continues to this day, though the sums involved have always been small compared to the private sector, and the effectiveness of PRP as a genuine motivator has often been questioned. In February 1988 Robin Ibbs , who had been recruited from ICI in July 1983 to run the Efficiency Unit (now in No. 10), published his report Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps . This envisaged
3186-427: Was characterised by a hierarchical mode of Weberian bureaucracy; neutral, permanent and anonymous officials motivated by the public interest; and a willingness to administer policies ultimately determined by ministers. This bequeathed a set of theories, institutions and practices to subsequent generations of administrators in the central state. The Irish Civil Service was separate from the British Civil Service. Whilst
3245-418: Was greeted with some derision, and it is true that the compensation sometimes hardly seemed worth the effort of claiming, and that the service standards were rarely set with much consumer input. But the initiative did have a significant effect in changing cultures, and paradoxically the spin-off Chartermark initiative may have had more impact on local organisations uncertain about what standards to aim for, than
3304-441: Was set up in 1992, to see that the Charter policy was implemented across government. By 1998, 42 Charters had been published, and they included services provided by public service industries such as the health service and the railways, as well as by the civil service. The programme was also expanded to apply to other organisations such as local government or housing associations, through a scheme of "Chartermark" awards. The programme
3363-477: Was then used to make up the shortfall in the Civil List during the subsequent decade. The Civil List Act 1972 allowed the Treasury to review the level of the payment every ten years, but only allowed for increases and not reductions. The abolition of the Civil List was announced in the spending review statement to the House of Commons on 20 October 2010 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer , George Osborne . In its place, he said, "the Royal Household will receive
3422-448: Was why the function should not be abolished or privatised. In November 1991 the private finance initiative was launched, and by November 1994 the Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to it as 'the funding mechanism of choice for most public sector projects'. In 1995 the decision was taken to privatise the Chessington Computer Centre , HMSO , the Occupational Health & Safety Agency and Recruitment & Assessment Services. It
3481-410: Was £126,293. New Civil List pensions continue to be awarded occasionally. In Canada the civil list was a common term during the pre-confederation period ; it referred to the payment for all officials on the government payroll. There was much controversy as to whether the list would be controlled by the governor or by the Legislative Assembly. The Assembly demanded control of all money matters, while
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