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50-492: The name "Owsla" is a reference to Richard Adams ' fantasy novel Watership Down , in which it refers to the governing caste in a society of anthropomorphic rabbits. In 2012, Owsla launched a monthly subscription, The Nest , with benefits including early access to Owsla releases. In 2013, Bromance Records partnered up with Owsla to create an American branch titled Bromance US with releases from Gesaffelstein , Illangelo , Brodinski and LOUISAHHH!!!. A year later, Owsla launched

100-627: A bachelor's degree in 1948, proceeding MA in 1953. After graduating in 1948, Adams joined the Civil Service , rising to the rank of Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government , later part of the Department of the Environment . He began to write his own stories in his spare time, reading them to his children and later on, to his grandchildren. Adams originally began telling

150-512: A baronet of St Mary Magdalen, Oxford ) descended from the Acland baronets of Columb John . Until his death, Adams lived with his wife in Church Street, Whitchurch, Hampshire , within 10 miles (16 km) of his birthplace. Their daughters, to whom Adams originally related the tales that became Watership Down , are Juliet and Rosamond. Adams celebrated his 90th birthday in 2010 with a party at

200-549: A commercial approach to their tasks. However, the Government conceded that agency staff would remain civil servants, which diluted the radicalism of the reform. The approach seems somewhat similar to the Swedish model, though no influence from Sweden has ever been acknowledged. The Next Steps Initiative took some years to get off the ground, and progress was patchy. Significant change was achieved, although agencies never really achieved

250-411: A new approach to delivery featuring clear targets and personal responsibility. Without any statutory change, the managerial functions of Ministries would be hived off into Executive Agencies , with clear Framework Documents setting out their objectives, and whose chief executives would be made accountable directly (in some cases to Parliament) for performance. Agencies were to, as far as possible, take

300-466: A website dedicated to giving exposure to electronic music artists and Owsla Goods, a 'fashion wing'. Richard Adams Richard George Adams FRSL (10 May 1920 – 24 December 2016) was an English novelist. He is best known for his debut novel Watership Down which achieved international acclaim. His other works included Maia , Shardik and The Plague Dogs . He studied Modern History at Worcester College, Oxford , before serving in

350-754: The Acts of Union 1800 abolished the Parliament of Ireland , the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was retained in formal charge of the Irish executive based at Dublin Castle . The Irish Office in Whitehall liaised with Dublin Castle. Some British departments' area of operation extended to Ireland, while in other fields the Dublin department was separate from the Whitehall equivalent. Following

400-565: The Antarctic in the company of the ornithologist Ronald Lockley . Just before his 90th birthday, he wrote a new story for a charity book, Gentle Footprints , to raise funds for the Born Free Foundation . In 1949, Adams married Barbara Elizabeth, daughter of RAF Squadron-Leader Edward Fox Dyke Acland, son of the barrister and judge Sir Reginald Brodie Dyke Acland , whose father, the scientist Henry Wentworth Dyke Acland (himself created

450-700: The British Army during World War II . After completing his studies, he joined the British Civil Service . In 1974, two years after Watership Down was published, Adams became a full-time author. Richard Adams was born on 10 May 1920 in Newbury , Berkshire, the son of Lillian Rosa (née Button) and Evelyn George Beadon Adams, a doctor. He attended Horris Hill School from 1926 to 1933 and Bradfield College from 1933 to 1938. In 1938, he went to Worcester College, Oxford , to read Modern History . In July 1940, Adams

500-615: The Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS), and they were in particular given charge of a series of Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) studies of policy efficiency and effectiveness. But, whether through lack of political will, or through passive resistance by a mandarinate which the report had suggested were "amateurs", Fulton failed. The Civil Service College equipped generalists with additional skills, but did not turn them into qualified professionals as ENA did in France. Recruits to

550-768: The Houses of Parliament ; employees of the National Health Service (NHS); or staff of the Royal Household . As at the end of March 2021 there were 484,880 civil servants in the Civil Service, an increase of 6.23 per cent on the previous year. The Northern Ireland Civil Service is a separate civil service in the United Kingdom. the incorruptible spinal column of England The Offices of State grew in England, and later

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600-734: The Office of Works and the Navy Board grew large. Each had its own system and staff were appointed by purchase or patronage. By the 19th century, it became increasingly clear that these arrangements were not working. Under Charles Grant , the East India Company established the East India Company College at Haileybury near London, to train administrators, in 1806. The college was established on recommendation of officials in China who had seen

650-693: The Property Services Agency and the Crown Suppliers , were being dismantled or sold off. Next, shortly after Thatcher left office, in July 1991, a new programme of market-testing of central government services began, with the White Paper Competing for Quality (Cm 1730). Five-yearly or three-yearly policy and finance reviews of all agencies and other public bodies were instituted, where the first question to be answered (the "prior options exercise")

700-509: The RSPCA . He resigned in 1982, commenting that the Society "seemed to be more concerned with each other than with the animals". Adams was involved with Cruelty Free International . He was also a patron of Animal Aid . Besides campaigning against fur, Adams wrote The Plague Dogs to satirise animal experimentation (as well as government and the tabloid press). He also made a voyage through

750-693: The United Kingdom , the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government , the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government , which is led by a cabinet of ministers chosen by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . As in other states that employ the Westminster political system ,

800-671: The University of Florida and at Hollins University in Virginia. Adams was the recipient of the inaugural Whitchurch Arts Award for inspiration in January 2010, presented at the Watership Down pub in Freefolk , Hampshire. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Winchester . Adams was a strong advocate of animal welfare . In 1980, Adams served two years as president of

850-520: The imperial examination system. In government, a civil service, replacing patronage with examination, similar to the Chinese system, was advocated a number of times over the next several decades. William Ewart Gladstone , in 1850, an opposition member, sought a more efficient system based on expertise rather than favouritism. The East India Company provided a model for Stafford Northcote , private Secretary to Gladstone who, with Charles Trevelyan , drafted

900-478: The "fast stream" recruitment process for accessing the upper echelons should be made more flexible, to encourage candidates from less privileged backgrounds. The new Department was set up by Prime Minister Harold Wilson's Labour Government in 1968 and named the Civil Service Department , known as CSD. Wilson himself took on the role of Minister for the Civil Service (which has continued to be a portfolio of

950-547: The Civil Service consisted of essential services, and that the "mandarins" (senior civil servants) needed to focus on efficiency and management rather than on policy advice. In late 1981 the Prime Minister announced the abolition of the Civil Service Department, transferring power over the Civil Service to the Prime Minister's Office and Cabinet Office . The Priestley Commission principle of pay comparability with

1000-514: The Civil Service — often known by the metonym of Whitehall — forms an inseparable part of the British government . The executive decisions of government ministers are implemented by the Civil Service. Civil servants are employees of the Crown and not of the British parliament . Civil servants also have some traditional and statutory responsibilities which to some extent protect them from being used for

1050-811: The Nestivus Charity Campaign, a series of holiday initiatives with all proceeds going to the international music nonprofit, Bridges for Music. On September 18, 2016, Owsla celebrated five years of establishment with a party in Los Angeles . In a video published by Owsla, Skrillex spoke about the establishment. He said "I make music 'cause I love music and it all starts from there. And I surround myself with good people that I believe in as well. I think it’s important to create your family." The General Manager of Owsla, Blaise DeAngelo asserted that Skrillex previously, like many other artists, had issues with record labels, implying that it caused him to create his own. Owsla

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1100-735: The Prime Minister), while the first Minister in Charge of the Civil Service Department was Cabinet Minister Lord Shackleton, also Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal. The first Permanent Secretary was Sir William Armstrong, who moved over from his post as Permanent Secretary at the Treasury. After the 1970 General Election, new Conservative Prime Minister Ted Heath appointed Lord Jellicoe in Lord Shackleton's place. Into Heath 's Downing Street came

1150-458: The Second World War demands for change grew again. There was a concern (illustrated in C. P. Snow 's Strangers and Brothers series of novels) that technical and scientific expertise was mushrooming, to a point at which the "good all-rounder" culture of the administrative civil servant with a classics or other arts degree could no longer properly engage with it: as late as 1963, for example,

1200-471: The Treasury had just 19 trained economists. The times were, moreover, ones of keen respect for technocracy, with the mass mobilisation of war having worked effectively, and the French National Plan apparently delivering economic success. And there was also a feeling which would not go away, following the war and the radical social reforms of the 1945 Labour government, that the so-called " mandarins " of

1250-464: The United Kingdom centred around the street Whitehall , hence the metonym. Initially, they were little more than secretariats for their leaders, who held positions at court . They were chosen by the king on the advice of a patron, and typically replaced when their patron lost influence. In the 18th century, in response to the growth of the British Empire and economic changes, institutions such as

1300-968: The White Hart in Whitchurch, where Sir George Young presented him with a painting by a local artist. Adams wrote a poetic piece celebrating his home of the past 28 years. Adams died on 24 December 2016 at the age of 96 in Oxford , from complications of heart failure and a blood disorder . Civil Service (United Kingdom) King Charles III [REDACTED] William, Prince of Wales [REDACTED] Charles III ( King-in-Council ) [REDACTED] Starmer ministry ( L ) Keir Starmer ( L ) Angela Rayner ( L ) ( King-in-Parliament ) [REDACTED] Charles III [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The Lord Reed The Lord Hodge Andrew Bailey Monetary Policy Committee In

1350-496: The efficiency scrutiny programme and with a wider focus on corporate planning, efficiency and objective-setting. Progress initially was sluggish, but in due course MINIS-style business planning became standard, and delegated budgets were introduced, so that individual managers were held much more accountable for meeting objectives, and for the first time for the resources they used to do so. Performance-related pay began in December 1984,

1400-471: The fast stream self-selected, with the universities of Oxford and Cambridge still producing a large majority of successful English candidates, since the system continued to favour the tutorial system at Oxbridge while to an extent the Scottish Ancient universities educated a good proportion of recruits from north of the border. The younger mandarins found excuses to avoid managerial jobs in favour of

1450-452: The higher civil service were too remote from the people. Indeed, between 1948 and 1963 only three per cent of the recruits to the administrative class came from the working classes , and in 1966 more than half of the administrators at undersecretary level and above had been privately educated. Lord Fulton 's committee reported in 1968. He found that administrators were not professional enough, and in particular lacked management skills; that

1500-634: The holder of certain other offices in respect of whose tenure of office special provision has been made; [or] a servant of the Crown in a personal capacity paid from the Civil List ". As such, the civil service does not include government ministers (who are politically appointed); members of the British Armed Forces ; police officers ; officers of local government authorities ; employees of some non-departmental public bodies ; officers or staff of either of

1550-479: The key report in 1854. The Northcote–Trevelyan Report recommended a permanent, unified, politically neutral civil service, with appointments made on merit, and a clear division between staff responsible for routine ("mechanical") and those engaged in policy formulation and implementation ("administrative") work. The report was not implemented, but it came as the bureaucratic chaos in the Crimean War demonstrated that

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1600-417: The level of autonomy envisaged at the start. By 5 April 1993, 89 agencies had been established, and contained over 260,000 civil servants, some 49 per cent of the total. The focus on smaller, more accountable, units revived the keenness of Ministerial interest in the perceived efficiencies of the private sector. Already in the late 1980s, some common services once set up to capture economies of scale, such as

1650-637: The military was as backward as the civil service. A Civil Service Commission was set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage as Parliament passed an Act "to relieve the East India Company from the obligation to maintain the College at Haileybury". Prime Minister Gladstone took the decisive step in 1870 with his Order in Council to implement the Northcote-Trevelyan proposals. This system

1700-539: The more prestigious postings. The generalists remained on top, and the specialists on tap. Margaret Thatcher came to office in 1979 believing in free markets as a better social system in many areas than the state: government should be small but active. Many of her ministers were suspicious of the civil service, in light of public choice research that suggested public servants (as well as elected officials themselves) tend to act in ways that seek to increase their own power and budgets. She immediately set about reducing

1750-660: The next few years Watership Down sold over a million copies worldwide. Adams won both of the most prestigious British children's book awards, one of six authors to do so: the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize . In 1974, following publication of his second novel, Shardik , he left the Civil Service to become a full-time author. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1975. At one point, Adams served as writer-in-residence at

1800-412: The political advantage of the party in power. Senior civil servants may be called to account to Parliament. In general use, the term civil servant in the United Kingdom does not include all public sector employees. Although there is no fixed legal definition, the term is usually defined as a " servant of the Crown working in a civil capacity who is not the holder of a political (or judicial ) office;

1850-415: The position of technical and scientific experts needed to be rationalised and enhanced; and that the service was indeed too remote. His 158 recommendations included the introduction of a unified grading system for all categories of staff, a Civil Service College and a central policy planning unit. He also said that control of the service should be taken from the Treasury, and given to a new Department, and that

1900-599: The private sector was abandoned in February 1982. Meanwhile, Michael Heseltine was introducing a comprehensive system of corporate and business planning (known as MINIS) first in the Department of the Environment and then in the Ministry of Defence . This led to the Financial Management Initiative , launched in September 1982 ( Efficiency and Effectiveness in the Civil Service (Cmnd 8616)) as an umbrella for

1950-408: The size of the civil service, cutting numbers from 732,000 to 594,000 over her first seven years in office. Derek Rayner , the former chief executive of Marks & Spencer , was appointed as an efficiency expert with the Prime Minister's personal backing; he identified numerous problems with the Civil Service, arguing that only three billion of the eight billion pounds a year spent at that time by

2000-459: The story that would become Watership Down to his two daughters on a car trip. They eventually insisted that he publish it as a book. He began writing in 1966, taking two years to complete it. In 1972, after four publishers and three writers' agencies turned down the manuscript, Rex Collings agreed to publish the work. The book gained international acclaim almost immediately for reinvigorating anthropomorphic fiction with naturalism . Over

2050-408: The top down," asserting that it is an "artist-driven" company. On May 5, 2017, Owsla released an annual compilation album, Howsla . It was described by Pitchfork as "a focused take that’s largely modeled on bassline house, a style from the northern UK that’s distinguished by greasy low-end melodies, hard-thwacked drums, and a slippery, skippy sense of swing." Subsidiaries of Owsla include Nest HQ ,

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2100-519: Was believed with the Thatcher reforms that efficiency was improving. But there was still a perception of carelessness and lack of responsiveness in the quality of public services. The government of John Major sought to tackle this with a Citizen's Charter programme. This sought to empower the service user, by setting out rights to standards in each service area, and arrangements for compensation when these were not met. An Office of Public Service and Science

2150-432: Was broadly endorsed by commissions chaired by Playfair (1874), Ridley (1886), MacDonnell (1914), Tomlin (1931) and Priestley (1955). The Northcote–Trevelyan model remained essentially stable for a hundred years. This was attributed to its success in removing corruption, delivering public services, even under stress of war, and responding effectively to political change. Patrick Diamond argues: The Northcote-Trevelyan model

2200-646: Was built on thereafter, and continues to this day, though the sums involved have always been small compared to the private sector, and the effectiveness of PRP as a genuine motivator has often been questioned. In February 1988 Robin Ibbs , who had been recruited from ICI in July 1983 to run the Efficiency Unit (now in No. 10), published his report Improving Management in Government: The Next Steps . This envisaged

2250-705: Was called up to join the British Army . He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps and was selected for the Airborne Company, where he worked as a brigade liaison. He served in Palestine , Europe, and East Asia but saw no direct action against either the Germans or the Japanese. After leaving the army in 1946, Adams returned to Worcester College to continue his studies for a further two years. He received

2300-491: Was characterised by a hierarchical mode of Weberian bureaucracy; neutral, permanent and anonymous officials motivated by the public interest; and a willingness to administer policies ultimately determined by ministers. This bequeathed a set of theories, institutions and practices to subsequent generations of administrators in the central state. The Irish Civil Service was separate from the British Civil Service. Whilst

2350-463: Was described as a label started for electronic music artists who "couldn’t get good label deals or resources and support they needed." Porter Robinson 's Spitfire was the label's debut release. Releases that followed, such as Zedd ’s Shave It , Gesaffelstein ’s Aleph and What So Not ’s Jaguar , were described as prominent. Owsla Head of A&R Chris Morris explained that "In order for an artist to be signed, there has to be that passion from

2400-418: Was greeted with some derision, and it is true that the compensation sometimes hardly seemed worth the effort of claiming, and that the service standards were rarely set with much consumer input. But the initiative did have a significant effect in changing cultures, and paradoxically the spin-off Chartermark initiative may have had more impact on local organisations uncertain about what standards to aim for, than

2450-491: Was set up in 1992, to see that the Charter policy was implemented across government. By 1998, 42 Charters had been published, and they included services provided by public service industries such as the health service and the railways, as well as by the civil service. The programme was also expanded to apply to other organisations such as local government or housing associations, through a scheme of "Chartermark" awards. The programme

2500-682: Was why the function should not be abolished or privatised. In November 1991 the private finance initiative was launched, and by November 1994 the Chancellor of the Exchequer had referred to it as 'the funding mechanism of choice for most public sector projects'. In 1995 the decision was taken to privatise the Chessington Computer Centre , HMSO , the Occupational Health & Safety Agency and Recruitment & Assessment Services. It

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