History as Expertise and the Influence of Political Culture on Advice for Policy Since Fulton

The 1968 Fulton report made the case for reforming the civil service to meet the demands of modern government. This article considers Fulton, and subsequent ?failures? to implement it, in the context of a changing political culture in Westminster that privileged political advice in policy-making and became ambivalent towards external expertise. It explores whether the Fulton recommendation for the creation of policy planning units in government departments, staffed by a mix of outside experts and talented officials, could be reimagined for present purposes, to include historians: history embedded in policymaking is proposed as an alternative to history presented to policy-makers.