The unwritten British constitution as it affects Civil Service accountability – especially to Parliament – is going through an incremental, but very significant, change, argues Professor Colin Talbot. At the heart of the British constitution lies the concept of separation of the administrative elite from the political elite. This is very different from other countries […]
Continuity and Change in the Civil Service II: How SPADs and Tsars are changing the Whitehall landscape
The UK has had a clear dividing line between its political and administrative leadership. In the third post in our series examining the current state of the Civil Service, Professor Colin Talbot argues that the rise of the SPAD and the Tsar is changing this. Special advisors – or SPADs, to use their common acronym […]