In my final year as a student at a Midlands Polytechnic (a sort of vocational establishment with many now having attained University status) in the early 1980's there were many rumours that Recruiters for the Civil Service had been watching our progress, in particular the Degree Grade predictions from tutorial staff.
Some of us could expect a call to an interview imminently.
It said something about a slackening of criteria in Government Departments that we, very much in the second or third tier of education were being considered at all. It may also have reflected that the traditional, fertile sources for Diplomats, Consular Staff, Private Secretaries and Civil Service moguls from the top rated Universities had been diluted as financial and career rewards had become more lucrative in Commerce and Industry.
It may still be the case that the Secret Services seek out the highest flyers in respective disciplines of lingusitics, politics, history, science and technology and completely ignore perfectly worthy candidates from the provinces. Suffice to say I was not approached nor had I expected to be but did experience some feelings of being unloved anyway. I could imagine myself as "Our Man in Havana" ,"The Man from the Ministry, a Sir Humphrey Appleby character or perhaps a mole or spy.
It has therefore been interesting to see archived documents from the 1850's arising from a sweeping review of Civil Service Policy on recruitment. This was intended to establish a permanent and neutral administrative body to serve an elected Government and could be seen as acknowledgement of an insidious Old Boy Network perpetuating jobs for the privileged classes.
There were four main stipulations from the Northcote Trevelyan Report.
a)Recruitment should be entirely on the basis of merit by open, competitive examinations
b)Entrants should have a good ‘generalist’ education and should be recruited to a unified Civil Service and not a specific department, to allow inter-departmental transfers.
c)Recruits should be placed into a hierarchical structure of classes and grades
d)Promotion would be on the basis of merit not on the grounds of ‘preferment, patronage or purchase’
The overseeing Civil Service Commissioners were ratified by Queen Victoria in 1855 and the creation of the Commissioners to oversee open recruitment based upon examinations was the single most important factor in the development of a unified civil service dedicated to serving the public.
The Civil Service looked for young men ‘of superior education’, although individual departments had different requirements. While not all departments demanded that candidates ‘must be unmarried and without family’ (a precondition for being considered for appointment as a Lieutenant of Revenue Police), most required high standards of attainment in arithmetic, English grammar and composition, history and geography along with excellent handwriting and spelling.
A broad basis of knowledge was therefore required but for some archaic reason in order to work at the Treasury, you had to be prepared to answer examination questions on the first three books of Euclid and translate a passage out of Latin, French, German or Italian.
The 1855 examinations for junior clerks covered the following subjects;
In Elementary Arithmetic; a person having £5,704. 18s. 4½d lays out one third in good which he sells for £2316 5s 10d, how much has he at last, and how much has he gained?
Find the income tax on £2382.7s.6d at the rate of 16d in the pound
History; What were, at different times, the titles of the Chief Magistrates of republican Rome? Name the first and last of the 12 Caesars and the principal writers of the Augustan Era.
What were the Petition of Right, Instrument of Government, Act of Uniformity, Act of Settlement, and Act of Navigation?
Geography; Draw an outline map showing the overland route to India
Mention seven colonial possessions of Great Britain, specifying wherein their political and commercial importance to this country.
English Grammar; Construct sentences exemplifying the use of the relative pronouns in the possessive and objective cases.
The emphasis on the form of testing today has changed dramatically but understandably in a world where there are different demands on a workforce and this continues to apply to those in the Public and Civil Service.
A typical new breed of question seeks out cognitive and reasoning powers and looks for logical and innovative thought and intelligence.
At the end of a busy day at work, you accidentally send an e-mail containing an attachment with some confidential client information to the wrong person. Which of the following would be the best thing to do?
A - Decide to leave the office and deal with any problems tomorrow.
B - Decide to overlook your error, send the e-mail to the correct person and leave things like that.
C - Immediately send a follow up email to the "wrong" person, or if possible telephone them explaining your mistake. Then send the email to the correct person.
D - Find your manager, explain what has happened to them and let them deal with any problems.
I am not helping in revealing the answer, just discuss it amongst yourselves. If you do want to know the preferred answer just contact me through my Twitter account @Langdale82.
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