Civil Service

Government employees in the executive branch who are not

elected, not in the military and who are paid with public funds; in

the United States the term includes employees of federal, state and

local governments.

Civil service goes back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt,

Asia and the Middle East. China had the same civil service for

almost 2,000 years, ending only in 1912. The Roman Empire had

five ministries in its civil service: foreign affairs, finance, justice,

military affairs and internal affairs. Later, civil service institutions

were set up in the Holy Roman Empire, in Russia by Peter the

Great and in France, where schools were developed to supply

qualified employees.

In Great Britain the term refers only to employees of the

national government. Until the middle of the 19th century in

Britain, it was the aristocrat who was usually chosen for top-level

civil service positions. In the mid-19th century, reforms made topand

mid-level positions attainable by competitive examination.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the president has broad discretion

to select executive personnel. Although early presidents made

many appointments on the basis of merit, later the "spoils system"

became the norm. Under this system, appointments were handed

out as political favors regardless of qualification. Increasing abuse

and public dissatisfaction finally led to reform. In 1883 Congress

passed the Civil Service Act which laid the foundation for much of

today's civil service. The act created a Civil Service Commission

to oversee the system, provided for open competitive examinations

for positions and prohibited political interference or influence on

civil service employees. Positions that became available were to

be filled according to merit from lists of those who passed the

related examination. It was left to the president, however, to

decide which positions would come under the Commission. From

1883 to 1990 the number of these jobs went from 10 to 85 percent

of executive branch positions. Today, top departmental positions

are still filled by presidential appointment (subject to Senate

confirmation) and personnel in these positions are usually political

appointees removed by the succeeding administration.

Further civil service reform included the Lloyd-La Follette

Act of 1912, which gave employees the right to form unions and

made it more difficult to fire them. Other reform measures

prohibited civil service employees from participating in political

campaigns, gave veterans and certain members of their families

preference in hiring, and mandated that federal salaries be equal to

those of similar jobs in the private sector.

In 1978 the Civil Service Reform Act replaced the Civil

Service Commission with the Office of Personnel Management.

This act institutionalized labor-management relations, based pay

raises for mid- and high-level employees on merit rather than

longevity, and made it easier for senior employees to change jobs.

Today all 50 states have merit-driven civil service systems similar

to those of the federal government.

The number of federal employees has remained constant for

several decades at about 3 million; the number of state and local

civil servants is currently estimated at about 15 million.

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