CAREER SERVICE: A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON CIVIL SERVICE PROMOTION

This article looks at some of the ambiguities in the commonly-used phrase'career service' and considers what the essential elements of a true career service might be. It raises questions about civil service organization that may interest the reformist practitioner. It draws attention to an under-researched field (British textbooks are virtually silent on the subject of promotion) that deserves further academic study. British arrangements are placed in a comparative perspective. Until recently it could be said that the British civil service better resembled the ideal of a career service than that of any other western democracy. As a result of Thatcherite changes, we may in future look more like the rest of Europe.