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The independence of the civil service has "become an excuse for zero accountability", finds a report.
A study by Reform noted that while senior bankers have been called to account, there had been much less scrutiny of the mandarins who failed to deliver the "effective administration of Britain".
It added that while ministers are accountable to the electorate, civil servants "are an invisible and unaccountable group, all but immune to scrutiny".
Civil servants must be made "individually accountable for performance", said the report, with a move to the "democratic appointment of senior civil servants by ministers".
Citing the examples of countries such as Australia, France and Canada, the study said that the lesson was that executives must be held to account.
In Britain, said the study, ministers "pull the levers and nothing happens".
It added that "a lack of accountability permeates every rank of the service".
Andrew Haldenby, director of Reform, said: "During this research we have met officials who are the model of what civil servants should be: acutely conscious of costs to the taxpayer and keen to be personally accountable for performance.
"But they do this despite the structure of the civil service, not because of it.
"The performance of government will improve when these officials are given explicit responsibility for what they do and what they spend."
The study said that both Labour and the Conservatives are failing to grasp the "urgency and scale" of the need for civil service reform.
Among the recommendations was a call to end the doctrine of ministerial responsibility so that officials are no longer shielded from taking personal responsibility for their actions.
Ministers "should be responsible solely for the strategic direction of policy and its communications", said Reform.
Politicians should also have the power to appoint senior civil servants, with greater scrutiny of appointments.
The centralised system of civil service grades should also be abolished, argued the report, with line managers given more flexibility over recruitment to their teams.
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd