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Beyond Westminster and Whitehall provides the first comprehensive account of the range of sub-central government institutions that are responsible for the delivery of services to citizens. These bodies are the warp and weft of the British system of government and yet are all too frequently ignored. For a full understanding of British government, the study of sub-central government is of equivalent importance to that of the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, and Parliament. Westminster and Whitehall do not always get what they want. There are a great many restraints upon the actions of the centre, and central policies all too often have unintended consequences. This book, demonstrating that Britain is not a unitary state but a differentiated polity in which sub-central governments play a key role, will be essential reading for teachers and students of British politics.
'The complete history of Whitehall Palace, the official seat of the English monarchy for almost 160 years
WHITEHALL - the name of a street now synonymous with the civil service - has been the centre of British religious and political power for over 500 years. Whitehalltakes the reader behind closed doors to explore the fascinating history that lies behind the façade of the great departments of state and some of the greatest figures in British history, including Henry Vlll's playground, the execution of Charles I, Nelson's tortured love life, and Winston Churchill's plans for a last stand against the forces of Hitler's Nazi invaders. It explores the private house in Whitehall - ignored by tourists today - which became the most notorious address in London, when Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb conducted their very public and tempestuous love affair there. Inside Admiralty House, screened from public view, is the elablorately decorated boardroom equipped with its own wind clock where Nelson received his orders to attack the French. There is also the dining room where Nelson fumed over dinner with his wife Fanny, who burst into tears at his black mood. Fragments of the tennis courts where Anne Boleyn watched Henry Vlll playing tennis in his 'slops' have survived behind the walls of the Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall. Beyond its glass doors, a secret passageway leads to Number Ten Downing Street. Cabinet papers reveal that Winston Churchill planned to use Whitehall as a 'fortress' in 1940 when Britain faced imminent invasion by Hitler's Nazi forces. The documents published for the first time show how Churchill prepared for street fighting in Whitehall's departments, as he made his final stand. And it also reveals for the first time the films that helped Churchill escape the rigors of war in his underground cinema at Whitehall as the Prime Minister battled to preserve Britain for another 1,000 years.
Have you ever wondered what happens behind the scenes in the corridors of power during a major crisis or after a ministerial reshuffle? How do new government ministers get to grips with their portfolios and priorities? Who guides and supports them? And why, sometimes – during events such as 'Partygate' – do things go wrong? In this meticulously researched book, former senior civil servant Alun Evans lifts the lid on a vital but little-known cog in the machinery of government: private office and the private secretaries who work within it. Private secretaries exercise huge influence, and yet most of us have never heard of them. They are the ones who manage the flow of work, who whisper quietly in ministers' ears and who have been Prime Ministers' closest, most trusted and most discreet confidants. At critical moments in our national history – from the Falklands War to the Westland affair, from Black Wednesday to the 2008 financial crash, from New Labour to the coalition government – they have been central but hidden players. With exceptional access to former Prime Ministers and decision-makers, Evans explores what private office is and why it matters to British democracy. He argues that following the egregious constitutional breaches of Boris Johnson's premiership, private office must once again be taken seriously so it can return to being the independent junction box of government and a vital part of the British constitution.
This book is about a lost world, albeit one less than 50 years old. It is the story of a grand plan to demolish most of Whitehall, London’s historic government district, and replace it with a ziggurat-section megastructure built in concrete. In 1965 the architect Leslie Martin submitted a proposal to Charles Pannell, Minister of Public Building and Works in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, for the wholesale reconstruction of London’s ’Government Centre’. Still reeling from war damage, its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century palaces stood as the patched-up headquarters of an imperial bureaucracy which had once dominated the globe. Martin’s plan - by no means modest in conception, scope or scale - proposed their replacement with a complex that would span the roads into Parliament Square, reframing the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The project was not executed in the manner envisaged by Martin and his associates, although a surprising number of its proposals were implemented. But the un-built architecture is examined here for its insights into a distinctive moment in British history, when a purposeful technological future seemed not just possible but imminent, apparently sweeping away an anachronistic Edwardian establishment to be replaced with a new meritocracy forged in the ’white heat of technology’. The Whitehall plan had implications well beyond its specific site. It was imagined by its architects as a scientific investigation into ideal building forms for the future, an important development in their project to unify science and art. For the political actors, it represented a tussle between government departments, between those who believed that Britain needed to discard much of its Victorian and Edwardian decoration in the name of ’professionalization’ and those who sought to preserve its ornate finery. Demolishing Whitehall investigates these tensions between ideas of technology and history, science and art, socialism and el
Introduction -- Institutional capabilities and the dynamics of implementation -- Patterns of institutional change -- EU public procurement policy -- Transposition -- Macro-implementation -- Conclusion.
'Screamingly funny...a splendidly effervescent and enjoyable book' Daily Mail One part Lonely Planet, one part tell-all family memoir, this is the definitive and hilarious guide on how to survive family holidays. No one has more experience of travelling together than the Whitehalls. They've given us a window into their escapades in the hit Netflix show, Travels With My Father, and in this brilliantly funny book they've pooled their advice for fellow travellers. In doing so they are sharing some of their best anecdotes, their most extreme experiences and their most valuable advice. It's part memoir of family life, part travel guide and full on, laugh-out-loud funny.
In the 21st century governments are increasingly focusing on designing ways and means of connecting across boundaries to achieve goals. Whether issues are complex and challenging – climate change, international terrorism, intergenerational poverty– or more straightforward - provision of a single point of entry to government or delivering integrated public services - practitioners and scholars increasingly advocate the use of approaches which require connections across various boundaries, be they organizational, jurisdictional or sectorial. Governments around the world continue to experiment with various approaches but still confront barriers, leading to a general view that there is considerable promise in cross boundary working, but that this is often unfulfilled. This book explores a variety of topics in order to create a rich survey of the international experience of cross-boundary working. The book asks fundamental questions such as: What do we mean by the notion of crossing boundaries? Why has this emerged? What does cross boundary working involve? What are the critical enablers and barriers? By scrutinizing these questions, the contributing authors examine: the promise; the barriers; the enablers; the enduring tensions; and the potential solutions to cross-boundary working. As such, this will be an essential read for all those involved with public administration, management and policy.