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

I work agency side and mostly with private sector companies.

I've recently done some work with a public sector department and dear God, not a single thing could be done without multiple consultations with the 'steering committee', which was far too large and someone was always out on leave at crucial moments.

I hasten to add they were lovely people and in many ways great to to work with, but it is not an environment set up to work efficiently.

ou could cut the Civil service in half and nobody would notice. It’s absolutely full of dead wood.

And yes, I’ve worked for them.

In my department there was one senior manager managing two middle managers who in turn each managed one member of staff. Nobody can argue that that is productive.

And the amount of people I knew who left to go and work in the private sector and came back five minutes later because the workloads were unsustainable was unreal.

I know - the meetings! I met a person a few years ago who told me they had just been hired as an “obesity officer” at the council. “So what are your plans for reducing obesity?” I ask. “Well,” person prickles, “First we have to appoint a steering group to form protocols…” I couldn’t help it, but persisted with asking just how obesity was to be tackled, and they just repeated like an automaton about working parties etc. Probably to this day they are still scheduling meetings to hire people to schedule those meetings…

Its truly shocking the posts on this thread. I thought I had seen some lazy slackers when in a previous role working with CS but it seems to be rife.

I also had expeience with local authorities - I lasted 18 months before I asked for a transfer. This local authoirty (very large one outside of London) was a disgrace. For me it was the cast of 1000's who seemed to want to attend meetings. Did very little bar bettitle the person who was presenting. I caught them out a few times because they had literally done no background on the meeting they were attending.

The redudancy payments for many of these people will be huge. Especially people who have been slackers and biding time for years and years and years!

Nail on the head. We need to stop these gravy trains.

My neighbour was made redundant from the CS aged 52 -has been reviving her very comfortable pension since then -22 years so far… How on earth is that sustainable?

I was hoping that OP would return and explain why 10,000 CS losing jobs was more concerning than similar job losses in the private sector.

Eg This says BT plans to cut 55k jobs worldwide https://businessplus.ie/jobs/bt-jobs-worldwide/

We know from previous financial events like 2008 that what happens overseas affects other countries.

I hope that the layers of management will be cut but more employed to do the actual processing of work. I work adjacent to the Home office, which has been a basket case for years. A colleague of mine said the they have doubled the staff (2 to 4) in the department he deals with and he's finally getting replies to queries, so fingers crossed this will happen.

…working in the CS myself …

There will be multiple people who will want to go, they will be nearing retirement, and will want to access thier pension

There will be people happy with their payoff, who have another job lined up, or plan on changing career.

There will be people who will be Tuped back into thier Home Ministry, because of specialist skills and knowledge

There are thousands of vacancies in the Civil Service, so some will be straight redeployments.
There is a big push to retrain CS into Digital Professions, to help save on the £1bn a year spent on Digital Consultants and Contractors, so that will be on offer

The number of forced redundancies will be minimal.

I work for a ALB … can’t wait to move back into out Ministry.

A friend works in Local Government and often comments that because there’s a good amount of staff, they lack the nimbleness you need to get things done because there’s so many people to get decisions past. I don’t want people to be overworked but I agree with her that sometimes a bit of having to do things yourself gets more work done. Husband is an outgoing civil servant and his team is awash with people. Another friend is a civil servant who often has eight meetings a day. I’ve just gone from a big organisation to a small one and my output has increased massively because we can make decisions quickly.

These quangos mushroom: NHS England will have a IT dept, a finance dept, a large HR dept, a handful (at least) of Diversity officers, and a multitude of other non-jobs all to service just itself.

When I worked in local govt I was appalled at the proliferation of jobs. One person would have a secretary, a diary secretary, a filing clerk, and sometimes the whole lot of them would have nothing to do! There’s nothing like spending other people’s (ie taxpayers’) money.

10000 across the country isn’t really a huge number - not an economy-shaking one.

So long as it’s duplicate roles, or roles that can be made more efficient through technology, then this is what’s needed. If the rest of the team are expected to pick up the slack then that’s not going to work. Also so long as front line services to the public are not affected, then no one else should sufffer.

The people being made redundant would get a nice pay off, and probably their pensions paid off too. Many may be grateful and see it as an opportunity to retire early. Others should be able to survive on a payout, retrain and find new opportunities. The saving in salaries will outweigh the tax contributions made by these individuals who may will most likely be contributing again when they figure out what their next step in life is.

No

Steelmaking is a strategic industry. We really don't want to be reliant on hostile states for the supply of the materials we make weapons with.

It will happen. There’s no choice. What else has the government said it will do that hasn’t happened?

Do we know which departments it’s in or whether it will be actual redundancies or natural wastage?
I guess cutting some departments will affect more than others.

I used to be civil servant then restrained as a teacher. I'm surprised cuts haven't been made sooner. Slow pace. Not enough work done. Waste of resources in some areas. I actually can't believe how lazy I was allowed to be as CS now I compare the work I get done and the requirements of being a teacher.

I do always think it’s funny that if a private company were to go under, or close UK operations, everyone is criticising the government for not saving the jobs (Tata Steel comes to mind), but when it’s the civil service people are positively gleeful.

Due to the size of redundancy packages cutting any public sector jobs doesn’t generally result in any savings for a considerable time. Up to two years recovery is an often viewed as acceptable (ie it will cost us double his salary but then we will save money). The system needs to be overhauled. These exit payments and massive pensions are completely unsustainable

Get on the topic about waiting times for DLA child then explain how cutting staff will benefit their customers.

Next should be the bloated Academy Trusts with the CEOS and Chief Impact Officers on massive salaries doing very little, while teachers are run off their feet.

Alastair Campbell tried, I guess, but the media can't publish as much swearing as your average investment bank on a good day.

You often see posts on here by teachers wanting to leave teaching, and applying to Civil Service roles because of the cushy working conditions and pension

Reading through the thread, it's clear that HR departments across the public sector need strengthening. Whenever a new manager is brought in and wants to change things for the better, they get absolutely no support.

In the MoD I'd like to see the procurement operation replaced by the team who have worked hard to get things to the Ukrainian frontline as fast as possible. The rest of the MoD is tediously slow.