Privatisation of UK Government Science: The Changing Working Lives of Scientific Civil Servants, 1970-2005

Organisational change in UK government research establishments (GREs) during the late twentieth century profoundly affected the scientific civil servants who worked in them. Civil service reforms in the 1980s and 1990s led to significant upheaval across the civil service with the reconfiguration of career management frameworks, alterations to physical working environments, the introduction of new management practices and an increasingly commercial outlook. This thesis evaluates how the workplace transformations associated with New Public Management and privatisation affected scientific civil servants’ career prospects, working practices and professional values.

The research draws on a new collection of oral history interviews with former government scientists who worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the Building Research Establishment during 1970‒2005. This original source material is used in conjunction with official papers and archival material to present the first historical study of scientific civil servants’ experiences of organisational change during this period. It foregrounds their individual stories to reveal the everyday instances of change that accumulated to engender a process of culture change in the workplace which had a substantial impact on their identities as professional scientists and public servants.

This study shows that organisational change in GREs was driven by the Conservative reform agenda which did not consider scientific research as a government activity that merited special treatment. It provides the first analysis of the distinct working environment of GREs which offered the prospect of a career in scientific research within the security of the civil service frameworks, thereby meeting government’s needs for the cultivation of specialist knowledge. It argues that the processes that led to privatisation devalued the status of specialists with these research organisations, suggesting that the demise of GREs carries long-term implications for government’s access to scientific expertise which are only now becoming visible.