R. K. Kelsall - Higher Civil Servants in Britain

PUBLIC POLICY, WELFARE AND SOCIAL WORK
In 18 Volumes

by
R. K. KELSALL

First published in 1955 by
Routledge, Trench, Trubner and Co., Ltd

Reprinted 1998, 2002
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1955 R. K. Kelsall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

The publishers have made every effort to contact authors/copyright holders of the works reprinted in The International Library of Sociology. This has not been possible in every case, however, and we would welcome correspondence from those individuals/companies we have been unable to trace.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

Higher Civil Servants in Britain
ISBN 0-415-17716-2
Public Policy, Welfare and Social Work: 18 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17831-2
The International Library of Sociology: 274 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-17838-X

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint
but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

T HE present volume is based upon a study forming part of a wider research programme, the first main results of which were published in July 1954 in a symposium, Social Mobility in Britain, edited by D. V. Glass. The various contributions in that volume provide a background against which the present enquiry should be examined. They were concerned with general problems of social selection and differentiation in Britain. They showed the broad trends, during the last two generations, in educational opportunity, and the relation of that opportunity to movement on the social ladder. They also indicated some of the changes in educational opportunity which had resulted from the legislation of the 1940s, and some of the problems which still arise.

In the overall research plan of the Division of Sociological Research at the London School of Economics it was envisaged that these general studies should be followed by a series of more specific enquiries. It would be relevant, for example, to examine the social and psychological consequences of upward and downward social mobility. Again, much could be learnt from the study of stratified working groups, such as factories or offices, about the relationship between the nature of the hierarchy and the types of conflict arising between different strata.

In addition, studies of particular groups or professions were needed, particularly those whose place in the power structure of the community, or in the process of social mobility, could be regarded as critical. It is into this last category of studies that the present work fits, as also does another enquiry now completed by a colleague. Dr. A. Tropp, in his forthcoming volume on the elementary school-teaching profession in England and Wales, also deals with a government-created profession, but one which contrasts sharply with the Higher Civil Service in important respects. Unlike the Higher Civil Service, which was to be recruited from the expensively-educated middle classes, the elementary teaching profession drew heavily upon the previously uneducated artisan-ate. The teaching profession until this century obtained its entrants through a specially subsidized system of education and training. While the State thus provided an avenue of social mobility, it also effectively controlled the status of the profession. Entry to the Higher Division of the Home Civil Service after the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms was on an entirely different basis, and the implications of this difference both as regards the avenues to, and status of, the profession, are considered in the course of the present study.

One general warning may be given to the reader unfamiliar with the Civil Service. Many of the terms used in the present study to describe particular types of people, such as higher civil servants, those in the Administrative Class or Assistant Secretaries, relate to groups the membership of which is somewhat fluctuating and uncertain at the margin. By the periodic processes of regrading specific posts, or modifying the upper or lower limits of the salary scales attaching to them, particular individuals may be brought within, or withdrawn from, the scope of one or more of the descriptive categories used. Too much weight should not, therefore, be given to small variations in the size of such groups over short periods of time. Nevertheless, the general reliability of the figures and the significance of the results are not materially affected by these minor, marginal fluctuations.