A War Office Inquest The Secretary of State for War
foreshadows a much-needed reform in setting up a Standing Committee to consider changes in the organisation and procedure of the War Office and the Military Commands. This great department inherits a time- honoured system of procedure which has been gradually evolved to provide checks and counter-checks for the actions taken by any individual, with the result that it is difficult to get anything decided or done without -numberless minutes and memoranda passing from department to department. This may be endur- able in peace-time, but is a grave handicap in war. The War Office is by no means the only exponent of the traditional methods of the Circumlocution Office. Every Government office was long ago inoculated wtih the same germ, and exhibits signs of the consequent lassitude against which new blood when introduced struggles in vain. Indeed so potent is the infection that business firms, accustomed to brisker business methods, complain that close association with Government departments tends to break down their own swifter methods and compel them to succumb to the official procedure. The departmental system, if it eliminates irregularities and improprieties, holds up action seriously. When it is objected that in a vast organi- sation such as that of a Government department these checks are unavoidable, the answer is that they appear to be avoided in many of the larger businesses which are conspicuously efficient. Officials of the Iraq Petroleum Company, of the Imperial Tobacco Company, and Imperial Chemical Industries will sit on the Standing Committee. The experience of these great trading concerns may be usefully compared with that of the Civil Service.
Previous page
