Compare and contrast the role of the Federal Bureaucracy in the United States with that of the Civil Service in Britain

Max Weber, (often) credited with the birth of sociology, the science of social studies, said that the 'ideal bureaucracy' consisted of a system that was efficient, worked fast but yet remained precise, wasn't ambiguous, had knowledge of the files it held, continually discreet, has strict subordination, reduction of friction whilst maintaining the lowest possible material and production costs. While Weber's statement is itself ambitious (and highly unlikely that a bureaucracy containing all those characteristics could exist in either the US or UK political systems) if a bureaucracy did exist with those characteristics it would be incredibly effective and useful to the administration of the time. In the US there has always been a long held view of negativity against civil servants and to that end, the term bureaucrat has become one of insult. In fact in 1982 a poll showed that 74% of US citizens thought that Federal Government was being badly run. The same is true of the UK, where the civil service and civil servants have been synonymous with delays, paper work and interference. Indeed the latest head of the Civil Service, Sir Andrew Turnbull, who is often thought of as a Civil Service modernise, especially by the Prime Minister, was brought in to do just that to the Civil Service.

The main similarity between the two bureaucracies is that the heads of government appoints the heads of when the position arises. This usually occurs, in the case of the UK, when the present head retires. In the US it is not uncommon for a new President to replace the head of the Bureaucracy when they come into power. In the UK Civil Service, the head of the service also assumes the role of cabinet secretary. The main need for a bureaucracy in the first place, in either system, is because of the amount of information that is available on any specific topic. It is utterly ridiculous for a single minister to be able to absorb and digest all the information to then produce a clear judgement