How Sir Humphrey resisted revolution

When Tony Blair complained about having "scars on my back", his words were widely seen as an attack on the public sector workers and their trade unions. In fact, the Prime Minister was venting his frustration at the grindingly slow Whitehall machine, and the time it takes to turn ministerial decisions into action on the ground.

When Tony Blair complained about having "scars on my back", his words were widely seen as an attack on the public sector workers and their trade unions. In fact, the Prime Minister was venting his frustration at the grindingly slow Whitehall machine, and the time it takes to turn ministerial decisions into action on the ground.

Mr Blair is not the first Prime Minister to demand a shake-up of the civil service; he will not be the last. Successive attempts at radical reform since the early 1970s have been watered down by a combination of inaction by politicians and the ability of Whitehall mandarins to preserve the status quo.

The weekly meeting of the permanent secretaries or "Sir Humphreys" at the Cabinet Office is seen as a gathering of one of the most exclusive and powerful clubs in the land. They warn that "permanent revolution" could destroy the strengths of a civil service envied around the world.

Despite that, the winds of change have been blowing through Whitehall since Margaret Thatcher arrived on the scene. On her first day as Secretary of State for Education in 1970, she handed her officials a page of an exercise book with the 18 things she wanted done - on that day.

Arriving in Downing Street in 1979, Baroness Thatcher was determined to bring about change to a service she distrusted. She disbanded the separate Civil Service Department and the Downing Street think tank, the Central Policy Review Staff. She believed the civil service told ministers only what they wanted to hear and turned increasingly to outside think tanks. The number of civil servants fell from 732,000 to 554,000 during Lady Thatcher's time as Prime Minister - a 24 per cent drop.

John Major continued the trend, bringing in "market testing" under which Whitehall departments were forced to compete with the private sector on efficiency grounds.