Civil service examinations are examinations implemented in various countries for admission to the civil service

Civil service

The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....

. They are intended as a method to achieve an effective, rational public administration

Public administration

Public Administration houses the implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work. As a "field of inquiry with a diverse scope" its "fundamental goal.....

 on a merit system

Merit system

The merit system is the process of promoting and hiring government employees based on their ability to perform a job, rather than on their political connections. It is the opposite of the spoils system.- History :...

.

The most ancient example of such exams were the imperial examination

Imperial examination

The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...

s of ancient China. Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 implemented such procedures in the turn of the 19th century.

In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, the permanent and politically neutral Her Majesty's Civil Service, in which appointments were made on merit, was introduced on the recommendations of the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report

Northcote-Trevelyan Report

The Northcote-Trevelyan Report was a document prepared by Stafford H. Northcote and C.E. Trevelyan in 1853 that catalyzed the development of Her Majesty's Civil Service in the United Kingdom due to the influence of the ancient Chinese Imperial Examination....

, which also recommended a clear division between staff responsible for routine ("mechanical") work, and those engaged in policy formulation and implementation in an "administrative" class. The report was well-timed, since bureaucratic chaos in the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

 (1854-56) promptly caused a clamour for the change. A Civil Service Commission

First Civil Service Commissioner

The First Civil Service Commissioner heads the Office of Civil Service Commissioners, which ensures that the Civil Service in the United Kingdom is effective and impartial and that appointments are made on merit, and hears appeals under the Civil Service Code....

was accordingly set up in 1855 to oversee open recruitment and end patronage, and most of the other Northcote-Trevelyan recommendations implemented over some years. This system was broadly endorsed by Commissions chaired by Playfair (1874), Ridley (1886), MacDonnell (1914), Tomlin (1931) and Priestley (1955).