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This article analyzes what the Westminster system actually means for civil services in historical context and contemporary practice. It explores the way in which practitioners, both politicians and civil servants, interpreted Westminster's implications and used them as justification, defense, and sometimes camouflage for their administrative choices in a range of jurisdictions. The article then uses the example of senior appointments to show why these nuanced interpretations are significant. Its principal finding is that the continued value of Westminster lies in its ability to provide a framework and discourse without being prescriptive or precise for particular circumstances. It is sufficiently flexible to be able to evolve with the needs of each generation yet continues to frame a sense of identity and purpose in how it is applied in abstract and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chrik Poortman, an international civil servant, worked for the World Bank for more than three decades. This profile uses his career and experiences to illustrate the functions and roles played by World Bank staff at each level of its “flat” hierarchy and the capacities needed to face challenges that are unique to their ilk. Each section explores a different range of functions, including working as a country director, working as a vice president, and working as a member of the World Bank's senior management team. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the Australian process of policy advice as it relates to the civil service. Policy advice may be difficult to assess. It is, after all, eventually a matter of judgment, an art or craft rather than a science. It usually requires the reduction of a complex problem to a set of options, based on assumptions about causation, and compatible with government policies or directions. Since advice is usually confidential, there may be some problems in seeking to judge its quality. Ministers have many sources of advice and disentangling them is difficult, so there can be no certainty that the civil service's policy, for better or worse, was responsible for the outcome. Good advice is what ministers should hear. To avoid giving unpalatable information because that advice may be unwelcome is an exercise not in politicization but in servility. The working party emphasized that policy advising must be confidential, to protect the relationship between ministers and their advisers. Any review must appreciate this confidentiality which restricts the available options for evaluation and people who might be able to undertake them.

The article offers an analysis on the different aspects of cabinet and prime ministerial government with respect to political leadership. This subject has been the center of debates among researchers over the years of which they conclude that this debate is inherently unresolvable. Still others believe that the argument about prime ministerial government is not only about the tasks of cabinet but as well as disciplined parties in parliament, the control over the civil service and the use of patronage. However, the author suggests that there is a need to identify clearly the structural characteristics of the cabinet system and the normative notions of how cabinet government should be run.

The article discusses the alleged politicization of the federal public service sector in Australia. It notes that partisan appointment, which occurs mostly in various federal positions, is one of the most common accusation cited by public authorities and educators. However, the study conducted by the British Royal Institute of Public Administration reveals that the charges cannot not be used as evidences to support claims. Rather, it maintains that continuity of federal experience is a notable trend which bears importance in the promotion of expertise.

Debates on ministerial responsibility have too often gone around in circles. The application of the principle is related to the incidence of resignations; analysis considers the reasons given for resignation or, rather more often, the reasons given for not resigning. The usual conclusions are that ministers resign occasionally when their personal involvement is unquestioned and when the prime minister determines that the political costs are less to let the minister go. But the ideas remain at a broad level because they relate to all the ministerial activities. This article seeks to disentangle these concepts, developing the ideas in Thompson and Tillotsen's article in this symposium, to see if a different set of concepts can better define this old notion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]