The Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Resistance and Adaptation to Changing Times

Abstract

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office found the process of adaptation to modern conditions difficult and progress was slow. In the last few decades, the pace has quickened. The social and educational basis of recruitment has been expanded, the number of women admitted and promoted to the highest ranks of the service markedly improved. The expansion of the Prime Minister's Office, the development of the Cabinet Office as the centre of inter-departmental coordination and decision-making, and the far-reaching effects of the use of electronic communication have altered the domestic context in which foreign policy is made. The article concludes with a defence of the professional elitism of the career service despite contemporary attacks.

Notes

 1. See, for example, G. Dethan, ‘The Ministry of Foreign Affairs since the Nineteenth Century’ and K. Doβ, ‘The History of the German Foreign Office’ in Z. Steiner (ed.), The Times Survey of Foreign Ministries of the World (London: Times Books, 1982).

 2. K.O. Morgan, Consensus and Disunity: the Lloyd George Coalition, 1918–1922 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp.17, 112, 260.

 3. Quoted in S. Jenkins and A. Sloman, With Respect, Ambassador: An Inquiry into the Foreign Office (London: BBC books, 1985), p.117.

 4. P. Hennessy, ‘The Quality of Cabinet Government in Britain’, Policy Studies, 6/2 (1985), pp.47–61, is a seminal article on the subject; Cmd 8787, Falklands Islands Review, Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, (London: HMSO, 1983).

 5. See, for example, B. Castle, The Castle Diaries, 1974–1978 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1980).

 6. Hennessy, ‘Quality of Cabinet Government’, p.37.

 7. Z. Steiner, ‘Decision-making in American and British Foreign Policy: An Open and Shut Case’, Review of International Studies, 13/2 (1987), p.6.

 8. E. Clark, Corps Diplomatique (London: Allen Lane, 1973), p.21.

 9. V. Cromwell, ‘The United Kingdom’, in Steiner (ed.), The Times Survey of Foreign Ministers of the World, p.559.

10. R. Dudley Edwards, True Brits: Inside the Foreign Office (London: BBC Books, 1994), p.10.

11. Quoted in Edwards, True Brits, p.120.

	12.
	The chart and the figures contained within this section were supplied by the FCO. I am particularly indebted to Dr Keith Hamilton for his assistance in securing this information.

13. Cmnd. 2276, Report of the Committee on Representational Services Overseas, 1962–3 [Plowden Report] (London: HMSO 1964); Cmnd 4107, Report of the Review Committee on Overseas Representation 1968–9 [Duncan Report] (London: HMSO, 1969).

14. Quoted in Dudley Edwards, True Brits, p.203.

15. Review of Overseas Representation (Report of the Central Policy Review Staff: London: HMSO, 1977), p.xiii.

16. Steiner, ‘Decision-making in American and British Foreign Policy’, p.10.