The Canadian Public Service : A Physiology of Government 1867-1970 / John Hodgetts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hodgetts, John, author.

Series:

Heritage

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Executive departments--Canada.

Executive departments.

Civil service--Canada.

Civil service.

Canada--Politics and government--1867-.

Canada.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (364 pages)

Place of Publication:

Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2019]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The Canadian Public Service is now so large that it employs over ten per cent of Canada's labour force, and among its many boards, commissions, and corporations there is a constant juggling of conventional departmental portfolios in an effort to keep pace with changing public priorities. As these bureaucracies penetrate our lives more and more, there is increasing need for a study which describes and explains them. This book is the first to offer the necessary clarification. It says nothing about public servants themselves; rather it focuses on the physiognomy and physiology of the structures in which they work and through which programmes are allocated, work distributed, and policy decisions made for all of Canada. It also examines the way in which environmental forces have helped to shape our so-called administrative culture, as well as the monumental difficulties that are involved in co-ordinating the administration of this vast country, three-quarters of whose public service concerns are located outside the capital. It concludes that all of our public organizations, the public service has proven the most responsive to the forces of change, but that it has been so caught up in structural and managerial adaptation that its capacity to concern itself with substantive policy issues has been subverted.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Foreword

Preface

Contents

Chronological perspective of Canadian Public Departments, 1867-1972

PART ONE: ENVIRONMENT AND STRUCTURE

CHAPTER ONE. Social purpose and structural response

CHAPTER TWO. The public service and the powerful persuaders

CHAPTER THREE. The political system

CHAPTER FOUR. The legal foundations

PART TWO: DESIGN FOR OPERATIONS

CHAPTER FIVE. Allocation of programmes: the departmental rubric

CHAPTER SIX. Allocation of programmes: the guiding principles

CHAPTER SEVEN. Structural heretics: the nondepartmental forms

CHAPTER EIGHT. Internal division of labour: devolution and the hierarchy

CHAPTER NINE. Buttresses f or the hierarchy: auxiliary and staff functions

CHAPTER TEN. The geographical dispersal of work

PART THREE: DESIGN FOR MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER ELEVEN. The Treasury Board: cabinet's management arm

CHAPTER TWELVE. The Public Service Commission: the ambivalence of central personnel management

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. Departmental management: responsibility without authority

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Employees of the public service: the neglected managerial link

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. Conclusion

Index

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Mrz 2019)

ISBN:

9781487590093

1487590091

9781487599485

148759948X

OCLC:

1091702029