Industrial relations training in the Civil Service College

Abstract

[Extract] What has been going on at the Civil Service College? Are recent criticisms of the College justified? In this article we try to throw light on these broad questions by looking at a specific aspect of the College's work, namely middle management courses at the Edinburgh Centre of the Civil Service College (CSC) , with particular reference to the topic known as 'the human aspects of management'. We shall consider the tactics of teaching, such as role-playing exercises, case studies and team teaching both from an experiential and an analytical perspective. On a more general level we argue that the CSC has considerable potential for further development. We have the impression that its progress is being thwarted by a lack of clarification of its true role. This state of affairs may be due to the fact that with some exceptions the College has been established and run in the 'all purpose' tradition of the administrative class.1 Furthermore the relatively high levels of specialist education among some civil servants may lead them to be suspicious of some of the general kind of courses offered by the CSC.