Parliamentary Affairs Advance Access originally published online on November 1, 2007
Parliamentary Affairs 2008 61(1):144-159; doi:10.1093/pa/gsm050
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The Modernisation of British Government in Historical Perspective
There is a substantial stock of literature regarding the public administration policies that have been pursued since 1979. These policies, which have increasingly been grouped under the heading of Modernising Government, are a valuable contribution to our understanding of the administration of contemporary policy. However, if we want to truly comprehend the reforms that have taken place in the management and functioning of the Civil Service and the way that the state is organised, then we need to look further into the past. This article places the Modernising Government agenda and reforms in the context of the broader history of public management policy and core executive organisation. Although the Blair reforms have punctuated the public administration equilibrium, they are not drastically different theoretically as they merely formalise the model outlined by Northcote-Trevelyan in the mid-nineteenth century.