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

@LionME

The civil service employs c half a million people. 10,000 across multiple depts in multiple locations really isn't that much as a total figure.

You're rude and preachy.

I've worked in the civil service and the private sector and there is no comparison. The public sector is massively inefficient.

If you don't perform in the private sector you get sacked. In the civil service you'd have to do something utterly horrific to get turfed out. I worked with multiple people that were just utterly shit at their jobs, including one whose drunken lunchtime antics caused two days of mayhem in one particular service. He was given a couple of weeks off and then brought back without another word said.

I currently work with someone who has a large group of male friends, who mainly work in public services and a couple in finance. My co worker has to mute their group chat as they are all so very under employed. One boasts about how his work from home job takes a maximum of an hour a day and he gets paid a good whack.

I don't necessariyl believe in small government but I do believe that what we have should operate with the same efficiency as the private sector. I don't think public sector workers having money to spend is a good enough excuse to allow public sector services to be overstaffed but still underperform.

I also don't see why those of us working our backsides off in the private sector should be subsidising the pensions of those in the public sector. Public sector pensions should have the same terms as workplace stakeholder pensions.

The only thing that I would worry about is that NHS England and health education England have just merged- they do the workforce planning for the NHS. What will happen particularly to the smaller allied health professions if they go? And will this have a negative long term impact on health inequalities? I do agree however that alot of the civil service can be trimmed down and got smaller. (I work for a smaller AHP which do a lot of work with NHS England and health education England in terms of trying to bolster profession numbers as we have a national and international shortage of clinical staff).

Tbf if a company employing 10.000 people was closing down, it would be front of page of all newspaper and not in a positive way. There would be talks of support from the government etc….

Not saying there isn’t a need to reorganise the NHS or that NHS England is the most amazing thing ever.
But 10.000 is a lot all in one go. You need to give that to the OP.

Was so depressed when Labour won, and never thought I would be impressed with Keir, but actually -yes -if he actually carries this through - good man.

There’s nearly a million vacancies at present I believe across the country. Civil service staff will have transferable skills plus as I said before there will be natural wastage within the nhs that could be backfilled

it’s a headline figure
But the CS is over staffed

I’m guessing you’re talking to people in this way because you’re stressed about your job loss or that of a loved one. I am really sorry about that for you, but this isn’t really necessary.

Except a lot of them aren't. Things like legal work was mostly done by consultants because we couldn't get enough. The people who have stayed are comms, project managers and generalists. It was used as a free for all because HR originally put these people on perm contracts rather than temp. We already had people in various teams whose jobs were to work with the EU, they should have been enough once Brexit was done.

Appreciate that the civil service pension is not the same as the lgps. In the lgps if you are made redundant after 55 you get full unreduced pension. Civil service scheme is not the same and neither is USS.

the vast majority of people however are likely to have much lower pension pots than the average public sector pension. There is no getting away from the fact that it is extremely generous with massive employer (tax payer) contribution rates.

This would be my concern too. Especially given the antiquated systems in use.

There are 34,000,000 employed people in the UK. The effect on aggregate demand of reducing that by 10,000 (or 0.03%) will not be ‘catastrophic’. For a start, that assumes that these people are unemployable in any other role. Are they?

Oppose it if you like, but you’ve chosen a very strange rationale.

HOW. Has this cropped up on this thread. Ffs.

BEPs Pillar Two is doing a lot of this work, probably more effectively than the EU alone could.

However, my manifesto promise would be to abolish corporation tax - I truly don't think taxing companies is the right answer if we're looking for growth.

I know! I agree ... and if anyone from the civil service was looking, I was being explicit on my demands ;)

Unemployment benefit is only just under £400 a month.

Based on personal experience, the problem with civil service numbers cuts and worsening conditions is that it is often not the ones you would want that leave. The great people that can get better paid jobs and/or better conditions leave, with voluntary redundancy payments being an added incentive. Those that can’t get jobs elsewhere stay. So in the past few years in some departments it has acted like a filter, with the less effective workers now left.

@haufbiskiy
I agree with some of what you say.

I certainly did not leave with augmented pension. If you take pension before your pension date it is reduced. I had a preserved pension from a previous period of service under a different scheme to the current one. I'm 60 this year and took my pension last year a year early. It just, only just covers my essential living costs. 20 years full time service. I have a later civil service pension but I cannot access that until I'm 68. I still need to work.
I will need that pension because as a foster carer if you have no child in place you have no income, I had a gap of 4 months last year - I was forced to claim the pension and UC to survive.
It's a myth that all civil service pensions are huge. As a single person I will be OK at 67/68. OK as in caravan in Wales for a week, not multiple luxury long haul holidays a year OK.

What I actually have very little experience of is people on benefits.

We have added a huge number of public sector workers to cope with Brexit. Customs, product standards, compliance . The biggest win would be a re-allignment of regulation with Brussels and a customs union

🤣Spending time working for a City law firm many years ago gave me plenty of insight into how greedy, powerful and selfish people and businesses operate. There was never more truth in the saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It was sociopath-central.

There will be literally thousands of people who have lengthy service rubbing their hands together in glee waiting to receive their massively inflated redundancy packages plus augmented pensions. This will cost an absolute fortune but in the long run will hopefully save money and make things more efficient.

Employing people to do things like send out patient satisfaction surveys is an absolute waste of time and tax payers money, The essential roles will be TUPEd.

I carried out a VS project in a public sector organisation recently. We had to reject applicants due to the volume of applicants (from over 55s in particular) and had people putting in grievances because we wouldn’t make them redundant.. Everyone over 55 was desperate to take voluntary severance because they got immediate access to their full pension. Why wouldn’t you want that.

@PandoraSox

Yes, Depts are most likely to be given targets eg reduce headcount by 5% or work within x budget
Lots of ways of achieving that short of redundancy

Well, it’s the NHS not the USA so presumably cuts will be made after deciding what roles are really needed and which aren’t and then those people will go through redundancy processes and be given plenty of notice and payments.
its well over due- this actually gives me MORE faith in Labour, not less.

Yes, I'm aware of how it works (Ireland, Luxembourg, various BOTs). Perhaps the EU should be pushing for harmonisation of corporation tax rates. They did of course fine Apple a few years ago.

@Ted27 yes you are right, there won't be 10,000 actual redundancies.