"The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership." - (C) Wikipedia.
The real work of a state is as varied as its people are. It's also part of a collective of interests and institutions that help people to govern. This is seen day to day because government services work, issues are debated, and outcomes are reported weekly. It's experienced locally as well as reported nationally and so it's assumed to be there.
Those who work for the state are paid by the state itself. This involves being paid in line with the law and in many respects in line with salary levels that are publically available. It also includes commonly definable tasks. It makes this work transparent but also pervious to bad actors that interfere. This is the activity of people who make trouble where they feel a narrow aim is achieveable. However any work provided in government is considered safe because security services make it so.
The transparency of its aims and outcomes are not risks to its permanence here. The hazards which attend groups of people are implicit in their ideas (or ideology) and not in the systems and processes that we have. It's provable that threats are narrow and executed differently to wars and civil conflicts that erupt over much broader terms.
The safety of a state is greater than private enterprise for example. The services of a government must be considered resilient for there to be no interruptions to its way of working. If there are issues they are resolved to restore services to the people. This involves skills a government already has access to in order to function by its various parts. A modern state is able to keep itself operational in spite of threats or adverse conditions at home and elsewhere.
The level of expertise needed is dependent on the tasks involved. In the UK we employ a large number of people in a multiplicity of roles. The nature of it means people are hired according to what is required for the benefit of the state. A civil servant does not guide policy or involve the ideology of external forces in the execution of their role. It's not for civil servants to decide what their work is.
Posted: 23 August 2024.