The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service official, also known as a civil servant or public servant or public employee, is a person employed in the public sector by a government department or agency for public sector undertakings. Civil servants include workers at any level of government, and in a healthy civil service answer to that government, not a political party.
The extent of civil servants of a state as part of the "civil service" varies from country to country. In the United Kingdom (UK), for instance, only Crown (national government) employees are referred to as "civil servants" whereas employees of local authorities (counties, cities and similar administrations) are generally referred to as "local government officers", who are considered public servants but not civil servants. Thus, in the UK, a civil servant is a public servant but a public servant is not necessarily a civil servant.
The study of the civil service is a part of the field of public service (and in some countries there is no distinction between the two). Staff members in "non-departmental public bodies" (sometimes called "QUANGOs") may also be classed as civil servants for the purpose of statistics and possibly for their terms and conditions. Collectively a state's civil servants form its civil service or public service. The concept arose in China and modern civil service developed in Britain in the 18th century.
An international civil servant or international staff member is a civilian employee who is employed by an intergovernmental organization. These international civil servants do not resort under any national legislation (from which they have immunity of jurisdiction) but are governed by internal staff regulations. All disputes related to international civil service are brought before special tribunals created by these international organizations such as, for instance, the Administrative Tribunal of the ILO. Specific referral can be made to the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) of the United Nations, an independent expert body established by the United Nations General Assembly. Its mandate is to regulate and coordinate the conditions of service of staff in the United Nations common system, while promoting and maintaining high standards in the international civil service.
History
In China
Roman Empire The Roman empire (27 BC – AD 395) had several types of civil servants who fulfilled diverse functions in Roman society. They were called apparitores.
Accensi Accensi were usually professional civil servants, providing assistance to the elected magistrates during their term in office. In the courts, they summoned witnesses, kept track of time, and helped keep order. Outside of the courts, they escorted the magistrate and acted as heralds. They also helped in writing edicts and laws. It is also possible they were messengers and orderlies. The Accensi Velati were non military participants of military campaigns. They probably assisted clerks, accountants, supply officials, and aides. They also assisted religious affairs especially the Feriae Latinae, formed a collegium dedicated to managing the streets, and had a centuriate assembly dedicated to them.
Carnifex The carnifex punished slaves and foreigners, unlike lictores who punished Romans.
Coactor They were the tax collectors. The name coactor is derived from its latin meaning: "to compel, to force".
Lictores Similarly to accensi, lictores were public officers tasked to assist magistrates since the times of the Roman kingdom (753 BC – 509 BC) or even earlier Etruscan times. The number of lictores a magistrate had was proportional to status. Lictores were in charge of punishing Roman citizens.
Praecones They were generally employed to make announcements in public and crowds.
Scriba The scriba were civil servants working as public notaries as well as general bureaucracy. Greek cities had a similar figure, however the job was done by slaves.
Modern civil service In the 18th century, in response to economic changes and the growth of the British Empire, the bureaucracy of institutions such as the Office of Works and the Navy Board greatly expanded. Each had its own system, but in general, staff were appointed through patronage or outright purchase. By the 19th century, it became increasingly clear that these arrangements were falling short. "The origins of the British civil service are better known. During the eighteenth century a number of Englishmen wrote in praise of the Chinese examination system, some of them going so far as to urge the adoption for England of something similar. The first concrete step in this direction was taken by the British East India Company in 1806." In that year, the Honourable East India Company established a college, the East India Company College, near London to train and examine administrators of the company's territories in India. "The proposal for establishing this college came, significantly, from members of the East India Company's trading post in Canton, China." Examinations for the Indian "civil service"—a term coined by the Company—were introduced in 1829.
British efforts at reform were influenced by the imperial examinations system and meritocratic system of China. Thomas Taylor Meadows, Britain's consul in Guangzhou, China argued in his Desultory Notes on the Government and People of China, published in 1847, that "the long duration of the Chinese empire is solely and altogether owing to the good government which consists in the advancement of men of talent and merit only", and that the British must reform their civil service by making the institution meritocratic. On the other hand, John Browne, in the 1854 debate mentioned above, 'argued that elegant writing had become an end in itself, and the stultifying effect of this on the Chinese civil service had contributed in no small measure to China's failure to develop its early lead over Western civilisations': Coolican, p. 107.
In 1853 the Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone, commissioned Sir Stafford Northcote and Charles Trevelyan to look into the operation and organisation of the Civil Service. Influenced by the Chinese imperial examinations, the Northcote–Trevelyan Report of 1854 made four principal recommendations: that recruitment should be on the basis of merit determined through competitive examination, that candidates should have a solid general education to enable inter-departmental transfers, that recruits should be graded into a hierarchy and that promotion should be through achievement, rather than "preferment, patronage or purchase". It also recommended a clear division between staff responsible for routine ("mechanical") work, and those engaged in policy formulation and implementation in an "administrative" class.
The report was well-timed, because bureaucratic chaos during the Crimean War was causing a clamour for the change. The report's conclusions were immediately implemented, and a permanent, unified and politically neutral civil service was introduced as Her Majesty's Civil Service. A Civil Service Commission was also set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage, and most of the other Northcote–Trevelyan recommendations were implemented over some years.
The same model, the Imperial Civil Service, was implemented in British India from 1858, after the demise of the East India Company's rule in India through the Indian Rebellion of 1857 which came close to toppling British rule in the country.
The Northcote–Trevelyan model remained essentially stable for a hundred years. This was a tribute to its success in removing corruption, delivering public services (even under the stress of two world wars), and responding effectively to political change. It also had a great international influence and was adapted by members of the Commonwealth. The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act established a modern civil service in the United States, and by the turn of the 20th century almost all Western governments had implemented similar reforms.
Independence and accountability
Autocratic systems of government (such as monarchies) can favour appointments to administrative positions on the basis of nepotism, patronage and favoritism, with close relationships between political and administrative figures. Early Roman emperors, for example, set their household slaves and freedmen much of the task of administering the Empire,Compare: sidelining the elected officials who continued the traditions of the Roman Republic. But the political appointment of bureaucrats can run the risk of tolerating inefficiency and corruption, with officials feeling secure in the protection of their political masters and possibly immune from prosecution for bribe-taking. Song-dynasty China (960–1279) standardised competitive examinations as a basis for civil-service recruitment and promotion, and in the 19th century administrations in France and Britain followed suit. Agitation against the spoils system in the United States resulted in increasing the independence of the civil service—seen as an important principle in modern times.
Some governmental structures include a civil service commission (or equivalent) whose functions include maintaining the work and rights of civil servants at arm's length from potential politicisation or political interference.Compare: Compare the governance-administrative integration of Stalin's Orgburo.
By country
Americas
Brazil
Brazil started to move away from a patronage based public service starting in the second half of the 19th century, but written tests and merit only became the norm towards the end of the 1930s, as a result from reforms introduced during Getúlio Vargas first term as the nation's President.
Civil servants in Brazil () are those working in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal, state, Federal District or municipal governments, including congressmen, senators, mayors, ministers, the president of the republic, and workers in government-owned corporations.
Career civil servants (not temporary workers or politicians) are hired only externally on the basis of entrance examinations (). It usually consists of a written test; some posts may require physical tests (such as policemen), or oral tests (such as professors, judges, prosecutors and attorneys). The rank according to the examination score is used for filling the vacancies.
Entrance examinations are conducted by several institutions with a government mandate, such as CESPE (which belongs to the University of Brasília) and the Cesgranrio Foundation (which is part of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro).
The labor laws and social insurance for civil servants are different from private workers; even between government branches (like different states or cities), the law and insurance differ.
The posts usually are ranked by titles, the most common are technician for high school literates and analyst for undergraduates. There's also higher post ranks like auditor, fiscal, chief of police, prosecutor, judge, attorney, etc.
The law does not allow servants to upgrade or downgrade posts internally; they need to be selected in separate external entrance examinations.
Canada
Historians have explored the powerful role of civil service since the 1840s.R. MacGregor Dawson, The Civil Service of Canada (1929); Jack Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins, 1935–1957 (Oxford UP, 1982); J.E. Hodgetts, Pioneer Public Service: An Administrative History of United Canada, 1841–1867. (U of Toronto Press, 1955).