Robert Odams RIP
Sir: The dismissal of Robin Page (10 Janu- ary) from the Department of Health and Social Security for publishing his articles on 'The Welfare rackets' was a result of violat- ing the organisational norms within the Civil Service environment. His degree of ambival- ence was such that it used its ultimate cohesive weapon—the sack—to express its disapproval. The future is becoming more hopeful as the present generations now entering such employment care less and less about the organisation and its symbols in which they work.
As the present social fabric of the Civil Service crumbles under the reforms of Fulton, and the inevitable end to_the Ox- bridge yoke finally comes to the Administra- tive class, the failures of this monolithic bureaucracy will come more frequently into the open. Robin Page may not have been sacrificed in vain.
R. W. Bayliss
St Catherine's College, Oxford
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