How to Be a Civil Servant

by Martin Stanley

Although it is seldom recognised as such by the public, the civil service is a profession like any other. The UK civil service employs 400,000 people across the country, with over 20,000 students and graduates applying to enter every year through its fast-stream competition alone.
Martin Stanley's seminal How to Be a Civil Servant was the first guidebook to the British civil service ever published. It remains the only comprehensive guide on how civil servants should effectively carry out their duties, hone their communication skills and respond to professional, ethical and technical issues relevant to the job. It addresses such questions as:

How do you establish yourself with your minister as a trusted adviser?
How should you feed the media so they don’t feed on you?
What’s the best way to deal with potential conflicts of interest?

This fully updated new edition provides the latest advice, and is a must-read for newly appointed civil servants and for those looking to enter the profession – not to mention students, academics, journalists, politicians and anyone with an interest in the inner workings of the British government.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

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Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

this is a bit of a niche one

[Cyrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reflecting back on the book, I thought it gave a good big picture view of how the civil service works, but the chapter on the European Union felt like reading a textbook.

It's a good book for new starters.

[Alex Rendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful and entertaining overview of what being a civil servant is all about.

[Samuel Hare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some useful tips, but mostly picked up after a couple of years in the civil service and some very outdated references (think the civil service pre-emails!)

[Chloé · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

So I read this as I was interested in seeing what civil servants do and how they do it and I am considering pursuing a career in the civil service in the future. I found this to be very informative and interesting. It was great to learn about the structure of departments and the ethics of civil servants.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this and I learned a lot from it, I recommend this if you are interested in politics. I hope to read more political books in the future.

[Aparna · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent guide to the UK Civil Service. This is relatively quick to read, and provides a useful introduction to working with ministers, policy making, project planning and civil service culture. I’d recommend it to any new-starter in the Civil Service.