Description
His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service, is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, which is led by a cabinet of ministers chosen by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as two of the three devolved administrations: the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government, but not the Northern Ireland Executive.
As in other states that employ the Westminster political system, His Majesty's Home Civil Service forms an inseparable part of the British government. The executive decisions of government ministers are implemented by HM Civil Service. Civil servants are employees of the Crown and not of the British parliament. Civil servants also have some traditional and statutory responsibilities which to some extent protect them from being used for the political advantage of the party in power. Senior civil servants may be called to account to Parliament.
In general use, the term civil servant in the United Kingdom does not include all public sector employees. Although there is no fixed legal definition, the term is usually defined as a "servant of the Crown working in a civil capacity who is not the holder of a political (or judicial) office; the holder of certain other offices in respect of whose tenure of office special provision has been made; or a servant of the Crown in a personal capacity paid from the Civil List". As such, the civil service does not include government ministers (who are politically appointed); members of the British Armed Forces; police officers; officers of local government authorities; employees of some non-departmental public bodies; officers or staff of either of the Houses of Parliament; employees of the National Health Service (NHS); or staff of the Royal Household. As at the end of March 2021 there were 484,880 civil servants in the Home Civil Service, an increase of 6.23 per cent on the previous year.
The Northern Ireland Civil Service is administered as a separate civil service in the United Kingdom.
