The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

In 1853, also, Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan, who were selected by Mr. Gladstone to inquire into the condition of the civil service in England, reported in favour of a system of appointment by open competitive examination. The new method met with far more opposition at home than in India, and made its way much more slowly. Foreseeing obstacles in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston's government determined to proceed, not by legislation, but by executive order, resorting to Parliament only for the necessary appropriation. An Order in Council was accordingly made on May 21, 1855,[156:3] creating a body of three Civil Service Commissioners,[156:4] who were to examine all candidates for the junior positions in the various departments of the civil service. The reform was not at the outset very radical, for political nomination was not abolished, and the examinations—not necessarily competitive—were to be arranged in accordance with the desires of the heads of the different departments. The change could progress, therefore, only so fast as the ministers in charge of the various state offices might be convinced of its value; but from this time the new method gained favour steadily with high administrative officials, with Parliament and with the public. In 1859[157:1] it was enacted that (except for appointments made directly by the Crown, and posts where professional or other peculiar qualifications were required) no person thereafter appointed should, for the purpose of superannuation pensions, be deemed to have served in the permanent civil service of the state unless admitted with a certificate from the Civil Service Commissioners. In 1860 a parliamentary committee reported that limited competition ought to supersede mere pass examinations, and that open competition, which does away entirely with the privilege of nomination, was better than either.[157:2] The committee, however, did not think the time ripe for taking this last step, and the general principle of open competition was not established until June 4, 1870. An Order in Council of that date,[157:3] which is still the basis of the system of examinations, provides that (except for offices to which the holder is appointed directly by the Crown, situations filled by promotion, and positions requiring professional or other peculiar qualifications, where the examinations may be wholly or partly dispensed with) no person shall be employed in any department of the civil service until he has been tested by the Civil Service Commissioners, and reported by them qualified to be admitted on probation.[157:4] It provides further that the appointments named in Schedule A, annexed to the Order, must be made by open competitive examination; and this list has been extended from time to time until it covers the greater part of the positions where the work does not require peculiar qualifications, or is not of a confidential nature, or of a distinctly inferior or manual character like that of attendants, messengers, workmen, etc.[158:1]

A Test of Capacity rather than Fitness.

Since the general introduction of open competition, by the Order in Council of 1870, two tendencies have been at work which are not unconnected. The first is towards simplification, by grouping positions that have similar duties into large classes, with a single competition for each class, and thus diminishing the number of examinations for separate positions.[158:2] The second is the tendency so to examine the candidates as to test their general ability and attainments, and hence their capacity to become useful in the positions assigned to them, rather than the technical knowledge they possess.[159:1] This distinction marks an important difference between the system of civil service examinations as it exists in the United States, and the form which the system has assumed in England. For in the United States the object is almost entirely to discover the immediate fitness of the candidates for the work they are expected to do; in England the object in most cases is to measure what their ability to do the work will be after they have learned it. The difference arises partly from the fact that in America the examinations were superimposed upon a custom of rotation in office and spoils, while in England permanence of tenure was already the rule; and partly from the fact that the system is applied in America mainly to positions requiring routine or clerical work, whereas in England it affects also positions involving, directly or prospectively, a much greater amount of discretion and responsibility. Now, it is clear that if men are to be selected young for a lifelong career, especially if that career involves responsible administrative work, any acquaintance with the details of the duties to be performed, and any present fitness for the position, are of far less consequence than a thorough education, keen intelligence and capacity for development. Proceeding upon this assumption, Macaulay's commission on the Indian Civil Service laid down two principles: first, that young men admitted to that service ought to have the best general education England could give; and, second, that ambitious men should not be led to spend time in special study which would be useless if they were not successful in the competition. The commission urged, therefore, that the examinations should be closely fitted to the studies pursued in the English universities. This plan was adopted, and although at one time the age of admission, and with it the standard, was lowered, they were afterwards restored; and the same principle is now also applied to the higher grades in the home service. For the lower positions in that service, where the work is of a clerical nature, and hence less discretion and responsibility are involved, it was formerly the habit to make the examinations more of a test of immediate preparation for the duties of the office; but this, as we shall see, has recently been replaced by a system based upon Macaulay's ideas, though applied, of course, to an inferior scale of education.

The Different Grades in the Civil Service.

The permanent officials of a typical department comprise a permanent under-secretary at the head, and one or more assistant under-secretaries and chiefs of branches. These offices are treated as not subject to examination under the Order of 1870, either because they are filled by promotion, or on the ground that the positions require peculiar qualifications.[160:1] As a matter of fact such posts are by no means always filled by promotion, and persons are sometimes selected for them who are outside of the service altogether. Next in rank come the principal clerks; but they are recruited entirely by promotion from the first-class clerks, who are, therefore, the highest grade of officials entering the service by competitive examination. Below them are the men now properly called clerks of the second division, although the title of this class of civil servants has been changed so often that one finds strange variations of nomenclature in the different departments. Below these again come the assistant clerks (abstractor class), and finally the boy clerks.

Their Origin.

The sharp separation of the clerks into classes, with distinct examinations for each class, did not arise at once. The first examinations under the original order of 1855 were required only for a "junior situation in any department," and they were not the same in the different departments. They were elementary affairs,[161:1] evidently designed to sift out incompetence rather than to test superiority; for it must be observed that in only a very small proportion of these examinations was there even a limited competition.[161:2] When, however, the Order of 1870 extended the admission examinations to all positions in the service, not specially excepted or filled by promotion, and set up the principle of open competition, it became necessary to distinguish between the higher posts, involving discretionary powers and requiring a liberal education, and the lower ones where the duties are of a clerical kind; to distinguish, in other words, between the administrator and the clerk. Such a distinction was made by the commissioners in their earliest regulations under the Order of 1870,[161:3] the two classes being recruited separately by examinations of different character, the first of which was adapted to university graduates, and the second to young men from commercial life. At the outset the line was drawn somewhat at haphazard without sufficient attention to the real nature of the work to be done, and it was readjusted several times before it assumed its present form.[161:4]

Exceptional Positions.

Aside from the regular grades of clerks recruited by open competition, there are various kinds of inspectors, clerks and other special officials, appointed after open competition, limited competition, pass examination or no examination at all. In fact the departments are full of anomalies, some of them the necessary result of peculiar conditions of service, and others due apparently to no very rational cause. The reader will, no doubt, be sufficiently wearied by a description of the more common methods of examination, without going into the eccentricities of the system. It may be convenient to consider first the open competitions, and then the appointments that are made in other ways.