To wonder why civil service haters don't understand that cutting 10,000 jobs is going to hurt everyone

It makes you want to weep reading some of these real life experiences. The photocopying one - WOW just wow. You would think you had invented man's intervention into space. Not just efficiently photocopying some bundles in the most efficient way.

And who the fuck needs a dedicated person to print off their emails. You literally just press file and print. As long as there is paper in the print tray it really is exceptionally easy.

😆😆😆 that’s hilarious!!

It does suggest that the CS attracts life’s side steppers. People who’d rather go sideways not up, for fear of reaching any kind of greatness of some sort.

Efficiency seems to be at the very bottom of the list. They make up all these grand-sounding interview phrases to bestow some sort of sense of legitimacy to their work…

Should I have a further whinge about WFH entitlements…? no that’s probably enough rants for one day!

@TrainGame I went through that weird interview system for the 7 week stint I did at HMRC. Part of my role, was photocopying legal bundles for lawyers. There were 2 photocopiers, parked next to each other, so rather than photocopying one page at a time, I set up so I could do 2 sets at a time, one on each photocopier - it halved the time I spent photocopying. My line manager was astounded - she said in 20 years she'd never known anyone photocopy so quickly, or seen anyone work at such 'pace'. I reminded her I'd spent 20yrs in investment banking where that was par for the course😂

I temped at the DWP many years ago, and my only task was to print out emails for the head of department a few times a day. The rest of the time I just got on with my uni work, easiest job I'd ever had. And they were recruiting for a permanent post-holder for that role. Completely bonkers!

And while we’re on about the Civil Service can I just have a final rant about the completely moronic STAR system they use to interview and the ridiculous guff you need to state to prove you’re capable of “delivering at pace” which should read “delivering fuck all and being paid handsomely for the privilege” and other such complete and utter BS.

Example Scenario:
You were assigned a project with a tight deadline. You could say, "When I was assigned a project with a tight deadline, I immediately prioritized tasks, communicated effectively with my team, and proactively identified potential roadblocks. By working efficiently and staying focused, we successfully delivered the project on time and to a high standard”

Someone shoot me now. This isn’t the real world.

“Managing a quality service”. Who makes these these things up?

Show me the money. Show me how much was spent in your salary vs the work your department did that actually ran things well or better than last year.

Show me some numbers. Where do my taxes go, not least on the yearly £11 billion salary bill to U.K. tax payers to keep the civil service going.

The bottom 10% should be managed out on a quarterly basis. Far too much deadwood.

I could go on…

100% agree.

I heard someone who worked in the CS on the radio a while ago moaning about her salary.

She was admin and I think she said she was earning around £28k. But what she failed to mention and I looked it up myself was that she also had a 29% pension contribution from her employer meaning her package was £36,120 which is pretty good imo. And the pension is index linked for life guaranteed.

I did read a proposal that CS might be given more flexibility whereby they could reduce pension contributions and instead have a higher salary. If in the above example she reduced the pension to 3% like in the private sector, she could increase her pay by 26% to £35,280 which is very good for admin.

This a thousand fold.
Every single person I know or have met who has briefly worked in the CS were utterly shocked and stunned at the waste, ineptitude and incompetence.

The layers of waste are phenomenal. No private sector company could operate or survive operating as the vast majority of the CS does. With competent people operating at full capacity I would imagine you could easily cut the numbers in half. But it would require a completely different mindset to do so.

Probably because nobody can see how on earth that would be the case?

Definitely- I’ve worked in both organisations.

The civil service really do live in a bubble. Out in the real world there’s something called profit and loss and if you don’t bring in enough you’re out.

It’s high time the civil service actually provided value for money, rather than ‘secure jobs and gold plated pensions for us, but not the same conditions for you.’

Why?

I didn’t mind back in the day when’s civil service salary was clearly substantially lower than a company salary at a similar level.

But now? The perks are far better than at most corporates, the pensions are like nothing else (though I’ve read this has recently been reduced but ONLY for new workers, can’t let the gravy train stop for the old timers) and for all of this you don’t actually have to perform.

If there’s zero value you’ve delivered one month to the next, you’re not being fired. You just carry on. It’s a joke. Except it’s not. It’s a very expensive long term day light robbery of tax payers’ money. The civil service is not fit for purpose.

It’s been enlightening reading some of the entitled come backs from one or two old timers on here, assuming a loss of 10,000 jobs is somehow going to tank the economy and ‘affect everyone’.

Enjoy the reality out there we’ve been sucking up for the best part of three decades.

But it's not sudden hacking though. It's over 2 years.

I think you are probably right. And I’m sure it depends on the team/department.

I know three people in CS who are definitely very effective.

@Puzzledandpissedoff - I feel your pain!

There is terrible empire-building in some sectors. Yes, the status race of needing a PA and the onward march of the HR department whose tentacles interfere with anything and everything.

Unlike private sector job losses these will still save the state money as they were paying wages and huge pension contributions and now the worst they will pay is benefits. Get on with it Kier.

Local Authorities are worse than civil service in my experience.

300,000 jobs expected to be lost due to NI rises in April. That puts 10,000 CS jobs into context.

www.cityam.com/more-than-300000-businesses-plan-job-cuts-as-reeves-budget-starts-to-bite/

@Everythingisnumbersnow , there are lots of available jobs outside the civil service.

Absolutely this!

Standard practise I'm afraid, MaturingCheeseball. It was exactly the same with the SS director I was once PA for - six months in the job and all she'd done was arrange meetings to discuss what "consultations" would be needed and appoint yet more staff to "support" a task which wasn't actually being done

That was the one where I worked 5 mornings a week which she clearly didn't need, so I suggested 3 mornings instead
The answer: "Ooooo noooo; all the other directors have a PA every day so I must have one too"

This is is the case in my sector and it’s not Civil Service or Council. Completely ridiculous overpaid middle managers.

Very interesting reading from the people who work in or with the CS- please keep them coming.

This.

It's an interesting insight into the public sector mindset though. "I understand a bit about economics but not the bit about actual productivity."

Reeves's economic policies are set to cut a swathe through the private sector with soaring costs of employment, soaring energy costs, cast iron workers rights making employers nervous, and yet the whole country will grind to a halt if we sack 10,000 civil servants.

Yes I agree, and I am CS too.

Usually they achieve this by just not replacing people who leave.

Also it sounds like a big number but it’s pretty small in the context of how many people are employed in the CS in total, which is around 548,000.

I don’t think there is a problem with saying it has to be possible to get rid of people in accordance with UK employment law. They’re not just going to chuck out a bunch of people for no reason.

Thing is they are also on gold plated pension schemes which are costing billions. Maybe look at revisting that?

There are very very few of these schemes left in the private sector.

I worked with an environmental charity for several years and many of the people running it had been, or still were, public servants.

Consultation papers, task and finish groups blah blah blah - all talk, no resolution and no action.