The Changing Nature of Central Government in Britain: the ESRC's Whitehall Programme

Introduction The 1998 PAC Annual Conference, held at the University of Birmingham, was devoted to the work of the Economic and Social Research Council's (ESRC) Whitehall Programme on the Changing Nature of Central Government in Britain.' This special issue of Public Policy and Administration reprints six of the papers presented at that conference with the Frank Stacey Memorial Lecture. All the papers have been refereed and revised. The aim is to report some of the early findings of the Programme which began in April 1994 and will finish in June 1999 and to illustrate the variety of work being done. Thus, the papers cover the Programme's several themes (see below), comparisons with the rest of Europe (including the EU) and the disciplines of history, law, management and politics. This introduction provides a brief history of the Programme, describes the role of the Programme Director, sets out the Programme's objectives and themes and introduces the articles. Finally, I provide a select bibliography of publications covering the first three years.