Evaluate the British civil service system

Abstract: Britain is a typical country with a taste classification system. The formation of its civil servant taste classification system has gone through a gradual and effective accumulation process. Since the 1980s, with the promotion of administrative reform and changes in the salary management system in the UK, the broadband system has gradually become the institutional form and development direction of the classified management of British civil servants. The British broadband management system includes several aspects such as broadband management objects, salary-fixing power allocation, salary broadband design, and the relationship between salary and performance. Its implementation is conducive to improving the performance level of civil servants and manpower utilization efficiency, and is also conducive to reducing personnel costs. . However, this new classification system must have certain organizational foundations, institutional guarantees, guiding concepts and policy driving forces. It also differentiates the unity of civil servants, shakes the tradition of the civil service system, and changes the spiritual characteristics of civil servants. Its effectiveness Operations face two basic challenges: establishing a reasonable and measured evaluation system and accountability.

一

The English word "Civil Servant" (plural "Civil Service") comes from "Crown's Servant", which originally means "servant of the king". With the development of the bourgeois democratic movement With the development of civil society, citizens' rights are generally recognized and respected, and they gradually become "civil servants". Translated into Chinese, some are called "civil servants" and some are called "civil servants". The British civil service consists of two parts, namely political officers and business officers. Administrative officers refer to the members of the central government, including the prime minister, cabinet ministers and other elected or politically appointed senior officials. These people have to bear political responsibility for their advancement or retreat with the ruling party. A secretary generally refers to a government official who is a permanent official who does not advance or retreat from the cabinet, is hired through a public examination, and has no illegal or major disciplinary violations. Usually the civil service management system is mainly targeted at affairs officers, including their rights and obligations, selection, employment, assessment, training, promotion, rewards and punishments, communication, avoidance, wages and benefits, retirement and other aspects.

The United Kingdom has always been a typical country that implements a taste classification system. The "Maclay Report" in 1853 and the "Northcote-Williams Report" in 1854 were two milestone documents that established the British civil service system. The core spirit of these two reports was to emphasize the principles of open examination and merit-based recruitment. In 1870, the British Privy Council issued a decree dividing all civil servants into two levels: senior civil servants and junior civil servants. Senior civil servants must have a university degree. Although low-level civil servants have no academic qualifications, they can never be promoted to senior civil servants. In 1876, low-level civil servants were divided into adult and schoolboy levels. After serving for a certain period of time, adult civil servants may be promoted to senior civil servants after strict qualification examination and procedures. In addition, in addition to senior civil servants and low-level civil servants, a type of civil servants who wrote documents was added, which was the predecessor of the later assistant clerk-level civil servants. In 1906, the British Treasury issued an order to add an intermediate level between senior civil servants and low-level civil servants. This was the predecessor of the later executive-level civil servants. In this way, the four taste classification systems of British civil servants were initially formed. In 1920, the British Wheatley Committee divided civil servants into two categories and four grades: the first category is senior civil servants who help formulate policies, organize and guide the government; the second category is low-level civil servants who engage in transactional or daily mechanical work. Civil servant. The first category of civil servants includes two levels: the administrative level, which includes 6 official positions such as government deputy ministers and supervisors; and the executive level, which includes 7 official positions such as chief executive officer and chief executive officer. The second category also includes two levels: secretary level, which mainly includes senior secretary and secretary; and assistant secretary level.

After entering the 20th century, the division of labor in society has become increasingly detailed, and the scope of functions of government workers has also expanded. Many professional and technical jobs have entered the field of government work, and experts from various disciplines must be recruited to participate in government management. . To meet this need, horizontal divisions have been added to the taste classification. From 1945 to 1968, the British divided civil servants into two categories: general administrative personnel and professionals. General administrative staff are divided into four levels: administration, execution, affairs, and assistant affairs. Professionals and ordinary administrative staff are different in terms of work nature, selection criteria and methods.

Professionals include seven categories: legal personnel, statisticians, scientific researchers, engineering professionals, medical personnel, accounting professionals, and postal personnel. In 1968, the Civil Service Reform Commission headed by Rod Fulton also recommended that the original civil service structure based on job categories should be abolished, and several job categories of general administrative staff should be merged into a unified administrative job group to establish a unified administrative job group. A new civil service structure based on departments and job groups was adopted by then British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and implemented in 1971. This new civil service structure consists of four parts: an open group composed of about 1,000 top-level civil servants, including three levels: permanent deputy minister, deputy minister, and deputy minister; a unified recruitment, unified classification and classification composed of about 75 civil servants , general civil servants with unified salary standards; civil servants in a single department; civil servants in cross-departments. Since Fulton's reforms, the taste-based classification character of the British civil service has weakened.

“Since the Conservative Party won the general election in 1979, the British government’s civil service system has been undergoing a transformation that breaks with tradition. The government has made great changes in all aspects of civil service regulations, personnel, structure, functions, and processes. reforms were carried out”. In fact, since the early 1980s, salary levels in the public sector in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries have faced three main pressures: First, pressure from the labor market, the phenomenon that high-level salaries in the public sector are lower than those in the private sector It is becoming more and more serious, causing problems in recruiting and retaining talents for public service departments in many countries. Second, there is pressure to improve management efficiency. If the government wants to provide customer service quality in the most cost-effective way, it must rely on a more effective salary system as a management tool. Third, individual economic considerations have created pressure to improve wage flexibility in both the public and private sectors. Especially in the public sector, wage costs must be kept down in order to reduce public expenditures and government deficits. As a result, OECD countries, including the UK, have tried to use wages as a way to change the operation of public services.

In the UK from 1980 to 1985, personnel costs were mainly controlled by reducing the number of people employed. However, during this period, although the number of employees and personnel costs were strictly controlled, actual employment expenses continued to increase year by year. Operating cost control measures were introduced in 1985, and operating cost caps were set for each department from 1986 to 1987. All departments must develop three-year plans that clearly reflect how to offset wage and price increases through efficiency improvements. Each department must obtain approval from the Ministry of Finance for the portion of its personnel costs that accounts for more than half of its operating costs. Each department must publish its operating cost settlement accounts every year, detailing all changes and non-compliance with the upper limit. Any excess operating costs above the upper limit must be deducted from the second year's budget. In addition to operating cost review and control, each unit authorized to set wages must also obtain approval from the Ministry of Finance for its wage negotiation strategies and wage system changes. Since 1988, the "performance compensation system" has been gradually developed again. In 1992, the "Civilian Management Function Act" was formulated to strengthen the personnel rights and responsibilities of the heads of various agencies, implement personnel decentralization, performance pay, etc. In the same year, 13 government agencies began to implement the group performance pay system. In 1994, the policy white paper "Sustainability and Reform of the Civil Service System" was published, strengthening the authority to authorize various departments and government agencies to manage their own salaries. In 1996, the "Civil Service Act" was formulated, and the "Civil Service Management Regulations" were newly formulated in accordance with the "Privy Council Order 1995". The "Regulations on Civil Service Management" clearly stipulates the policy of decentralization and flexibility of salary; comprehensively authorizes all departments and administrative offices to set their own salary scales; and implements a new "senior civil servant" system (including a new salary scale). In 2002, a new "senior civil servant" salary system was implemented.

This method of using finance to control operating costs, including labor costs, of various departments and agencies allows greater power to be given to subordinates and allows various departments and agencies to implement various salary systems. Its core concept is to The seniority-based and fixed salary structure adopted by traditional bureaucratic organizations was changed to a broad pay band that incorporates performance factors, and then a more personalized performance-based pay system was further adopted.

The result of this salary system reform is not only the establishment of a flexible civil service salary system that is personalized and performance-oriented, but also a new civil service classification system, namely the broadband management system.

II

Broad banding is a new personnel management method that has emerged in recent years. It is actually a compromise of several management methods: it retains the work evaluation advantages while trying to ensure flexibility in work management. Its main approach is: in an organization with dozens of salary levels and hundreds of occupational classifications, positions are placed in a wide occupational classification table and a small number of salary bands. Within this broad division area, managers Have discretion and don’t have to get HR approval for endless reclassification requests. At the same time, it also reduces the career mobility levels of employees, thereby making their career development clearer. The biggest feature of the broadband system is the compression of levels. It compresses the original dozen or even twenty or thirty levels into several levels, and widens the salary range corresponding to each level, thus forming a new salary management system and operating process. , in order to adapt to the new competitive environment and management development needs. If taste classification management is people-centered and position classification management is position-centered, then broadband classification is a salary-centered management model, which incorporates people and positions into salary categories and rearranges them. Therefore, in a certain sense, the broadband system is not only a personnel classification management system, but also a salary management system. It should be said that it emerged from the salary management reform.

The British civil service broadband management system, formed by the civil service salary management reform, is mainly aimed at senior civil servants. Senior British civil servants live under the political affairs officers and are the elites in the permanent civil service system and the mainstay of the civil service system. The current new salary system for senior civil servants in the UK has been implemented since April 1, 1996, and can be divided into two types: those applicable to "permanent undersecretaries" and senior civil servants below. The salary system for senior civil servants below the Executive Secretary will be changed again starting from April 1, 2002.

Permanent Secretaries Remuneration Committee (PSRC) is set by the Permanent Secretaries Remuneration Committee (PSRC), which consists of the domestic civil servants, the Ministry of Finance and the Senior Remuneration Appraisal Committee. The Review Body on Senior Salaries (SSRB) is composed of five members including the chairman and two members. It is independently responsible for reviewing the salary of permanent and sub-level civil servants and submitting the results to the Prime Minister for approval. Starting from April 1, 2002, the new salary band for the permanent deputy minister level will be established in principle. In addition to taking into account the salary level of senior managers in the private sector, it will also be consistent with the "third salary band" in the new salary band for senior civil servants below the permanent secretary level. "(pay band 3) are connected.

The salaries of senior civilian officials under the Executive Secretary are reviewed and determined by the independent "Senior Remuneration Evaluation Committee". The committee is composed of 10 to 11 people including private business operators, university professors, and lawyers. It conducts independent reviews on the remuneration of senior civil servants, senior generals, judicial officers, and members of Congress, and makes specific recommendations to the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, and the Secretary of Defense. suggestion. The salary-fixing mechanism for senior civil servants and above in the British central government is therefore divided into two types. The first type is the Permanent Secretary Remuneration Committee, which is only responsible for the salary of the Permanent Secretary. The second type is the Senior Salary Evaluation Committee, which is responsible for determining the salary of the Permanent Secretary and below. The salary of senior civil servants and the Prime Minister, heads of departments, parliamentarians, general officers, senior judicial officers and above.

3

The salary reforms in the UK over the past two decades, especially the new salary system since 1996, have produced completely different effects on the classified management of civil servants. "The remuneration of British civil servants no longer adopts a system that combines grade and salary scale. Moreover, due to the abolition of grade regulations in the UK, the current relevant job grades are the job grades except 'senior civil servants', such as six and seven. Terms such as senior specialist, senior section member, section member, clerk, assistant, etc. only have a reference function in practice and no longer have statutory meaning.

At the same time, too many and excessive evaluation systems and evaluation behaviors will increase administrative costs and lead to excessive interference in civil servants' behavior. Therefore, forming a reasonable, objective and measured evaluation system has always been a difficult problem. Second, the determination of public responsibility. Due to the implementation of a flexible civilian organizational structure, the separation of decision-making and execution organizations, the rapid growth of semi-autonomous non-governmental organizations, the corresponding relationship between decision-making and execution has become relatively blurred, and whether the transfer of power means the transfer of responsibility has become a question that must be resolved problem. In addition, under the broadband system, department heads have the power to fix salaries for the civil service team in the same broadband, which leads to interference in the administrative actions of subordinates. Under such conditions, the identification of public liability issues has also become necessary. issues to face squarely.