A revolution in Whitehall? Changes in British central government since 1979

Since the Conservatives came to power in 1979 there have been important changes in British central government which have their intellectual origins in managerialist thinking of the 1960s, but owe their recent implementation to the commitment of the Prime Minister to reform the civil service along lines advocated by ‘new right’ or ‘public choice’ theorists. While most institutional reforms of departments were for political reasons, changes in the processes of the civil service can be seen as an extension of developments beginning with the Rayner Scrutinies, and moving through the Financial Management Initiative and the Efficiency Strategy to Executive Agencies. The British unified civil service is challenged by pressures for fragmentation, but limits to the changes are set by the dominance of the concepts of ministerial responsibility to Parliament, parliamentary audit, and of Treasury control.