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

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Hodgetts, John,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1973
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (382 p.) :; figures, charts throughout

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.

Table of 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