01210pab a2200121 454500008004000000100002000040245007200060260000900132300001500141520088800156650001801044773002601062180718b2007   xxu||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d  aMulgan, Richard  aTruth in government and the politicization of public service advice  c2007  ap.569-586.  aRecent controversies over intelligence in Iraq, to give one example, have raised problems about the politicization of official advice from government, particularly what we are led to believe is factual or `objective' advice. Objectively is a contested value and the lines are often hard to draw between fact, spin and misrepresentation. Public servants are held to higher standards of objectivity than politicians, a fact on which politicians trade when they seek to attribute assessments of evidence to their officials. The growing openness of government documentation is placing pressure on departmental officials who wish to be both loyal to their political masters and honest in their factual assessments. These issues are discussed with reference to recent Australian experience (and also with reference to the UK Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr. David Kelly). - Reproduced.  aCivil service  aPublic Administration