The reasons for this course were several. First, the public service was a
grandchild rather than a child of Whitehall. Most of its early staff came from
colonial public services which themselves took shape before the merit-based
Northcote–Trevelyan civil service had taken root in Whitehall. They had also
had a fair share of the inefficiencies and corruptions of that period. Several of
the services, but most notably that of NSW, had already been reorganized to
reduce (if not eliminate) political influence by the establishment of a public
service board, introducing open competition for employment, and applying
scientific management techniques to the organization of work, classification
and remuneration of staff, and methods of operation.
The public service differed from that of the Home Civil Service in
several ways. First, there was comprehensive public service legislation covering
employment, classification, and remuneration of staff. Public service manage-
ment was vested in a statutory official; the public service commissioner was
appointed for a seven-year term. The British relied on orders-in-council. The
Civil Service Commission, a Crown agency, was responsible only for recruit-
ment; other functions came under the Treasury. In Australia, the Treasury (like
its state counterparts) was essentially a budget and accounting office until
Keynesianism brought in a modern economics orientation.
The egalitarian spirit was strongly in evidence. Except for professional work
(lawyers, engineers, doctors), there was no provision for graduate recruitment.
The general administrative ranks were to befilled by school leavers (university
entrance qualification), whereas the higher-level posts in the UK civil service
were substantially a graduate preserve. Australian unions resisted graduate
recruitment until well into the 1960s, even though a door was partially
opened in 1935 at the behest of General Sir John Monash, Chancellor of the
University of Melbourne.
The Dominion of Canada took over the civil service of Upper Canada
(Ontario), and it was not until after the Second World War that nationwide
integration was perceptibly accomplished. In thefirst four decades there were
periodical attempts to establish a government-wide administrative framework
for personnel management. This was partially achieved in 1908 in a form
strongly reminiscent of UK arrangements.
The Great War proved a watershed for all three public services. In the
aftermath, there were various reviews; acrimoniously by businessmen in Aus-
tralia; top officials in the UK; and management experts from the USA in
Canada. New structures were created, in a different form in each jurisdiction,
but with efficiency as much as control the leitmotif. Australia and Canada
each established a three-member body by statute to oversee the personnel
and management of the public service. In the UK, a distinct command
with comparable functions was created in the Treasury, individual personnel
selection remaining a responsibility of the Civil Service Commission.
J. R. Nethercote