People and Organization

We have now outlined the main features of the British system of central administration as it is at present. Its evolution has been related to changes in the work it has been asked to do. Some parts of its task (for example some aspects of the parliamentary system of control) have hardly changed at all over the last century. Other parts have altered a great deal, and continue to alter at an increasing rate. The administrative system has to cope with many new problems in the fields of planning and management, while some of the old ones have become much more complex, particularly those of co-ordinating a growing area of government control and influence. They have not all been successfully overcome.