Political control of civil service.

The principle mechanism of political control of the Civil Service is the convention of individual ministerial responsibility. The convention relies heavily on the notion that the minister is responsible to Parliament for the actions of his department and is expected to give accounts to Parliament of matters relating to his department. The convention is designed to create accountability of ministers to Parliament and to safeguard Civil Servants from blame. In practice some parts of this …

…but the general position of his government has been to downgrade further their role in that area. It can be argued that political control of the Civil Service has fluctuated over the last thirty years. Before 1979, many commentators complained that the civil service had its own policy goals and were able to manipulate ministers into taking a certain direction. By 1997, however, the relationship between ministers and civil servants had changed, and is continuing to change.