Civil Servants in Vekllei

Part of the government series of articles.

Vekllei distinguishes public servants, who hold office by election or appointment, from civil servants, the professional employed staff who administer the ministries, parliaments and bureaus. A civil servant answers to professional standards and an employment contract, and not to an electorate. Political parties have been outlawed in Vekllei since the Atlantic Conference of 1965. The senior ranks of the service stay in place through every change of government.

Civil service is one of the most common occupations in the country. The Commonwealth School of Public Service at Fennel, Mira, administers the service under the Ministry of the Commonwealth and provides courses in governance, public administration and policy management. Entry is competitive, and the service has a reputation for drawing people who could hold comparable standing in industry. Like most Commonwealth employees, civil servants keep part of the working week for personal work.

Civil servants carry the same service obligations as everybody else. Regular Service requires an occupation registered with the municipality between the ages of 22 and 50. Many officers take their first government posting during Corsosva, which runs for four years between 18 and 32 and is administered by the Commonwealth Employment Register.

A ministry uses the same titles and standards in its federal headquarters, its regional branches and its republic offices. Senior civil servants transfer regularly between postings across the Commonwealth, and take federal practice with them to the remote republics.

Senior civil servants generally belong to one of the services, the permanent corps from which the senior posts of government are filled. The four mandatory services – the Commonwealth Administrative Service, the Commonwealth Armed Forces, the Commonwealth Police Service and the Commonwealth Judicial Service – are common to the federal government and the republics. Soldiers and constables hold an attestation or a commission and are not civil servants in the ordinary sense, but their services are organised in the same way. The statutory services, such as the State Service or the Commonwealth Medical Service, belong to a single ministry or parliament. Most civil servants belong to no service at all. These uncadred staff are employed directly by a bureau and usually stay in it, and they make up the great majority of the civil service.

The titles below are those of posts, and say nothing of the holder’s service. A Director of a bureau may be an officer of a service, an uncadred servant promoted from within or somebody brought in from industry.