To think Local Government is full of pointless jobs that exist just to justify managers’ roles?

And to add, the appraisal system doesn’t address poor managers. A poor manager who gives you nothing to do, will not reveal this on your appraisal. They’ll just pass you on the minimal work they give you.

I’ve never worked at a Council dept. where there was a system which measured managers on how well they manage and utilize staff.

I have worked at a council where HR told a stafff member who wanted to take action against at a manager ‘ don’t even think about it, the managers will stick together, you’ll get no where and it will be the worse for you’.

role in the public sector (and I’m sure in others too) you get the same performance reviews as everywhere else

Nope. In my current LG role we have no targets, no goals, no performance reviews and no appraisals.

We did in my last council, but not this one.

I have worked in Local Government for nearly thirty years and this is EXACTLY my experience. Yes there are certainly are teams working hard and really delivering for communities, and there are others with very little to do.

I have had roles where I have had nothing to do or next to nothing to do. The post was a vanity project for the manager. One of the few ways to get status in LG is to have staff. My old Council actually created a performance scale where the more staff you have, the higher your salary. Which just incentivized manager to accumulate or retain posts they did not need.

I was once involved in an investigation of a Manager who was watching films at work. Turned out the function of his team had been taken over by central government, as everyone knew, leaving him and his staff with literally no work. They were social workers, so without clients, they had no purpose. Instead of redeploying then or making them redundant, the Head of Service had just held onto this purposeless team. Perhaps because he was scared for his own job in an upcoming restructuring. So this entire team sat with literally no work for well over a year by the time I was involved.

I am in a new job at a new Council, and there is next to nothing for me to do. I was horrified when the previous post holder gave me the handover as I realised this was another non job. I am really pissed off. I have spent too much of my time at LG in jobs which have no real purpose or under occupied.

This failure to manage managers destroys people’s careers. It’s immoral to the public purse and it’s immoral to staff whose careers and confidence is destroyed. It’s also madness when councils are desperately trying to balance the books that there is this huge inefficiency that no one will talk about. They are all wedded to the narrative that they are all horribly over worked and under resourced. But thats simply not universally true in LG.

LG staff seem to have been particularly resistant to going back to work, despite their partnership focused jobs particularly benefiting from time in office, and I suspect that being under occupied is a factor in this. It’s nicer being under occupied at home

I would really encourage people who like to criticise to try and get a job in the public sector - see how it really is, and make a difference. People where I work are always interested in how we can save money.

I’ve worked in the private sector for 15 years, and a public sector role for 8. In my role in the public sector (and I’m sure in others too) you get the same performance reviews as everywhere else, you can get managed out if you are doing poorly, or you’re off sick too much. It’s like anywhere else I’ve worked. The main difference I have noticed is that in the private sector, if you take on extra work and responsibilities in a private sector job, it’s easy to ask for a pay rise or new job title. In the public sector, it just becomes part of your job. It’s hard to get more money or a new title, it just gets absorbed into your role. There isn’t the flexibility I’ve been used to elsewhere but we all just do it anyway because we are bothered about doing a good job.

My husband is a sales manager (not director) and he earns more than the person where I work who fulfils the CEO-type role. The list ain’t great!

I think a lot of perceptions about the public sector are very outdated, like from 50 years ago. Also, a lot of my colleagues work way beyond our allotted hours because we’re very conscious we’re providing a service to the general public.

I would have thought a lot of council tax goes on looking after an ageing population in care homes or at home. That’s expensive. Here’s a link to where my council tax goes https://www.salford.gov.uk/council-tax/where-my-council-tax-goes/

You’re kidding, aren’t you? Maybe 20 years ago, but local government is on the bones of its arse. There aren’t enough staff to fulfill statutory roles in many cases (adult social care, looked after children, etc. are stretched to breaking point as need continues to increase but funding can’t keep pace) never mind the ‘nice to haves’ like libraries and museums. Staff are departing in their droves and aren’t being replaced. Councils can’t fill the roles they do advertise because they can’t match private sector salaries. Stop dog whistling, OP, and go and do something positive with your life, instead of trying to kick the people who’ll be caring for you in the future.

Can’t believe some of the comments here. Can only be a journalist.

I see front line teams vastly overworked, and yes people do go off work sick with stress because the reality is that a social worker cannot manage 50 cases on a 40 hour week and actually do what they need to do to protect our most vulnerable people. and they are vilified if something is missed. And then there’s this constant attack against public sector workers which is demoralising and frankly energy sapping.

gold plated pensions don’t exist. Jobs for life don’t exist. These are old concepts but local government hasn’t been like that since the 70’s. I can’t think of anyone within my area of work who does nothing. There will be those that don’t work as hard as others, but that just isn’t the norm.

I think the key word here is worked rather than work.

In my experience it is grossly understaffed because of huge cutbacks. So many roles have vanished altogether, and people aren’t replaced when they leave, some departments, like planning, can’t keep staff because the private sector (housing developers, consultants) pay so much more.

If a service or product line turns out to be unprofitable, private sector companies can choose to eliminate it. If the whole business is unviable, they can cease trading.

County Councils and Unitary Authorities are legally obliged to provide certain statutory services to all residents who need them and qualify for them, regardless of the cost.

In the case of Social Services, demand has risen in recent years, partly due to an ageing population. Unfortunately, the cost of providing care has risen enormously. In particular, there is a shortage of specialist residential placements and some care providers have drastically increased their fees (in some cases by as much as 100% in a single year). Councils might be able to bring some of these services in-house, but certainly not at such short notice.

Councils have limited options to raise the vast extra sums needed. They can increase Council Tax, but only by a limited amount. They can sell off assets, such as property, but obviously they can only do this once. They can cut staff costs, but this will reduce the level of service they can provide.

They are no longer allowed to invest their funds in commercial ventures and there are numerous rules about when they are and are not allowed to use a cost saving in one budget to make up a deficit in another budget. Councils also have stringent audit requirements, hence the bureaucracy that many people see as unnecessary. They can’t really be compared to public sector companies as they are very different.

That you Elon ?

Or Donald ?

In most of the NHS organisations I've worked for there are far too many useless HR roles where staff don't know the policies, let alone the law, and are low grade bullies. I've never understood why the function isn't regionalised like it was in a different part of the public sector I worked in previously. And the amount of time that gets wasted on pointless meetings and lip service interventions, I swear it would be cheaper for each Trust to employ a dedicated employment lawyer.

My experience was that the resources were poorly managed. I worked in a finance team with an fte of 6. We could’ve done the work with half of the staff easily.

The majority of the people there had literally no idea what it was like to be truly busy. I don’t like the idea of everyone being worked to the bone but I literally did no work for two weeks because there was none.

However all the front line services were cut to the bone. They should have cut three of the finance staff, saved £150k a year and used that fund another 2 social workers.

Replicate that across the other finance teams who were just as bloated and you’d be in a much better state pretty quickly.

Plus all the fucking ICT contractors on insane day rates.

It was fucking awful and I left as soon as I could.

The staff had no idea what being busy was actually like.

Those days are long long gone 🙄

Only when people agree to pay their fucking taxes 🙄. There’s no money for road repairs - the vast majority of LG money goes on social care and SEN, both of which are desperately in need of more resources both people and money.

Hello Donald

I work in local authority and we've had to make huge savings over years and I am confident there are no teams sat around doing nothing. However I do think there are inefficiencies and things like frontline staff have been so cut that now we get more complaints, so then we needed a bigger complaints department, or then we get people working on a transformation project which is basically trying to work out how the reduced front line staff can do more with less. Sometimes I wonder why we don't just invest more in the frontline. I also think there are a lot more audit and assurance processes then people might realise, a lot of data is reported to central government etc and this all creates work and ever complicated systems. However if it didn't happen then people would be put out the council couldn't confidently say how many kids they have in care year on year etc.

Doesn’t ring true for me. Multiple rounds of redundancies at our LA means the remaining staff are doing the role of more than one person and their are massive skills gaps in the staff who perform essential services.

I’ve worked in both sectors, and I’ve seen a lot of chancers in the private sector. There is always a stigma against public sector local government workers, often by people who have never worked in public sector, but I can guarantee you from my experience, most people are spinning several plates to get things done to meet deadlines.

Labour did the bloat / flabby headlines

Yes, 100%. I work in local government at a borough council and the waste of money is breathtaking. Entire corporate missions being the be all and end all, then all of a sudden being replaced by a completely different strategy to at cost many thousands to develop via an expensive consultancy. A development vehicle that folded very abruptly with nothing to show for it except tens of thousands in sunk costs and no oversight. Snazzy apps costing 10k that about 50 people use. The senior wage bill ballooning by millions per year for vague and unaccountable director level jobs while the social workers juggle impossible caseloads because there are so few.

The essential services are pared to the bone while the comms department sprouts yet more layers of management. It's a Labour council with virtually no opposition and people blindly vote them in every time. It's massively depressing. There are some excellent people working there who are true public servants but I can't blame them when they get fed up and leave.

Which council was it that had so much money they invested it in Iceland and lost it all?

It’s more than a suggestion. There is large scale local government reorganisation (all councils will become parts of large unitaries), together with regional devolution, happening at a rapid pace. Councils have been told they’ve got two years to get it done or it will be done to them. Some of ours are on the fast track so it’ll be done much sooner.

Given how much it might affect people I can’t believe it’s not had more attention. It seems councils are deciding themselves who to pal up with. Some councils (like Swindon) seem to be being left behind. It’s all very rapid.

OP sounds like a Tory/Reform bot

Id love to know which council this is and when this is supposed to have occurred . I’ve worked in local government for many years and there have been years of efficiency cuts and now people are going flat out trying to keep on top of it and deliver a service. Its morale sapping reading this sort of post

Rubbish