Public administration

Branches in this group are listed together under the name Public Administration – a generic term to describe members who share distinctive concerns from members in other Prospect industry groups.

Prospect members help to make the machinery of government work in many different ways – and places. As well as working for mainstream UK departments and agencies, Prospect represents professionals employed in:

• the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
• the Channel Islands of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man
• arms' length functions of the UK government such as property taxation (Valuation Office Agency), industry regulation (Ofcom), and auditing. The latter has recently undergone major change. In November 2012, the government transferred around 700 auditors employed by the public sector Audit Commission to new private-sector employers and closed down the Commission’s Audit Practice.

Among these bodies are members who serve the democratic institutions of the electorate - most notably in both Houses of the Westminster Parliament but also in Holyrood (Scottish Parliament), the Senedd (National Assembly for Wales), the Tynwald (Isle of Man), and the States of Jersey and Guernsey.

Like all public servants, these members take pride in their skills and independence from outside influence of any kind. But financial pressures affecting the whole of the public sector are putting professional standards and the terms and conditions of staff under increasing threat.

Prospect puts the interests of professionals first. We seek to protect standards from the challenge of shrinking resources and our members from the human impacts of change. Our branches in these bodies have long experience of representing their members and many of them were stand-alone organisations before they joined Prospect.