What's in a title?

This morning, I had occasion to mention the Auditor General, a man (for he is a he) with a splendidly Cromwellian title, even if that title is more likely to be derived from modern European practice than from the 17th century. I suppose that, in more recent times, he would have been known as the Chief Auditor.

It is a little reported fact that all of the senior civil servants in the Scottish Executive have - since the recent election - assumed new job titles. They are now known as Directors or Directors-General (apart from the boss, Sir John, who remains Permanent Secretary or, more formally, Permanent Under-Secretary of State and occasionally referred to (rather inelegantly) as USofS).

In the good old days, there was a strict hierarchy of titles. Beneath the Permanent Secretary of the Scottish Office were the Deputy Secretaries, each of which headed up a department (such as the Scottish Education Department or the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland). Beneath them were a number of Under Secretaries who in turn had responsibility for a group of divisions; each division was headed up by an Assistant Secretary. (This is a slight over-simplification but let us not complicate matters unnecessarily.) This system was well understood by insiders and everyone knew where they stood in the pecking order. There were of course 'Yes Minister' jokes and misunderstandings, usually to do with the lack of typing skills of these senior officials.

Over the past ten or so years, changes in the grading structure of senior civil servants led to these job titles falling into desuetude. It became more customary to refer to heads of department, heads of group and heads of division, arguably a victory of function over grade.

But, since the election on 3 May, all this has now changed. Heads of department have now become Directors General, while the rest have become directors. As far as I can understand, this is supposed to reflect the theory (whose principal proponent is the Permanent Secretary) that directors will now work directly (what else?) to Ministers, freeing up Directors General to concentrate on 'cross-cutting issues'. At least this dispels one mystery - which was that nobody ever really understood how heads of department filled their time. But directors (heads of division) invariably worked directly to Ministers, even under the old regime. I put the change down to fashion, myself - that and the allegation that the uppermost levels of the Scottish civil service are reputed to have fallen deeply in love with their new SNP masters.

Accordingly, the departments, some of them going back more than a century, have been written out of history. If you look at the Executive website, you will be hard put to find any reference to those organisations which until 3 May were known by such titles as the Scottish Development Department or the Scottish Health Department. The Executive consists merely of a host of directorates, even although these are grouped together in such a way to resemble the components of the old departments. But, officially, departments have been expunged. Few blog readers may care about this desecration, but some of us will mourn the departure of old and familiar bodies. In any event, the old organigram has been deleted and replaced by this description of the Executive's senior management structure. Nice photos, guys!