Keeping the Centre Small: Explanations of Agency Type

Abstract

British government ‘growth’ in the recent past has not been reflected in a growing civil service. Bureaucratic expansion has largely taken place in local authorities and in central non-Departmental bodies. Explaining growth in the second area requires an explanation of why government agencies should be constituted in one form rather than another, and four explanations are considered. They are random theories, theories relating agency type to the administrative fashions current at the time of an agency's creation, managerial theories relating agency type to functional task, and political theories relating agency type to political considerations such as outflanking tactics and political sensitivity. A major theme of the article is that no single explanation appears to be adequate on its own, but rather that a multi-factor explanation is needed.