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Management development has become an important part of the debate over reforms of public services in the UK and Ireland since the early 1980s. The argument was that the crisis of public sector delivery was not one of resources, but of the management of available resources. Thus management became the central focus of restructuring. The emphasis on the central role of management meant the reformulation of old ideas around notions of new public management and human resource management. Failure to treat the management development of managers according to the tenets of HRM may indicate both practical mistakes associated with implementation and/or deep seated misconceptions in the relevance of management reform to the wider reform of public services. Our evidence, taken from samples of UK and Irish Civil Service managers, shows a more subtle set of failings associated both with traditional aspects of Civil Service management and with problems in the new systems.