Civil Service Fast Stream

Income over £25k starts having loans reduced. Tell me how families on incomes on £26k and above benefit from the system.

My ds applied for both this and a number of other competitive streams over the last couple of years.

After 6 months of tests and 4 rigorous rounds - she got down to the last 40 places out of 4000 for one of them. Unfortunately she didn’t get the job. But when we looked at the comments on student forum it seems like most of the places went to candidates who had already done the summer internships. She couldn’t even apply for a summer internship as she wasn’t poor enough/living in a poor enough postcode and she is white. So although they say the internship programme isn’t inherently racist as it doesn’t offer a job at the end of it and everyone needs to apply normally for the graduate schemes - it seems like they are choosing those who have done the internships which aren’t open to everyone.
btw - she has straight A* grades and a v good degree from an excellent top tier uni. It’s tough out there. The large grad schemes have gone very dei heavy and imo it’s pointless applying if you don’t fall into any of the dei categories.

I applied for it and didn't get past the tests they put you through at the start. They were like the tests you do for the 11+ - gruesome. I think DH applied and failed at that hurdle too!

Teacher here

Sadly he is mis guided if he thinks the civil service is a good way to provide public service! - If he wants to do good against the odds and isn't motivated by money, far better for him to go into education or care and actually make a difference against the odds rather than bumming around in teams meetings talking up a good job.

Kids whose parents who went to university or live in "naice" areas are not (necessarily) rich, they are just not (necessarily)( poor.

And it's not nonsense. One of the biggest issues is that teachers have low expectations of the kids and don't tell them about careers opportunities beyond the trades. So the only way to get past that is to go in yourself and tell them about your career area, dispel the myths, tell them how to get relevant experience, what to do now while they are still at school and what subjects to do for A level or when they go to university.

This is what my employer does.

All that said, if a pupil has a practical bent these days they are probably better off being steered into a trade. AI can't do plumbing!

Try being the downtrodden and disregarded “lower” and then see if you’re that concerned about the “squeezed middle”. I never saw the middle classes being concerned about equality when they were benefitting from the system alongside the rich, now you expect the working class to care about you? Nope.

Oh and all the info is in the web, and the student room has threads each year for FS applicants. DC found these super useful.

Does help to have a father who is president of the region and in a position where you have nannies and housekeepers.
Princess of Wales looks stunning despite the cancer treatment and working and three young children

Can’t comment on the WP access to internships as haven’t read the article, but the FS application is, like most grad schemes, several stages each testing a different aspect of the applicant. I hope this isn’t the only grad scheme he’s applying for - most will open this autumn and be equally as burdensome. But from my dc’s experience of applying over two cycles they get better at understanding what is required with practice (dc is now a FSer - its a good scheme, but very much depends on the teams you’re placed with - some will expect intense work, some won’t have the time to develop you - you need to be a self starter). The FS isn’t the only public sector scheme - there are many more and he should apply to as many as possible.

I have read 2% success rate for fast stream.

How are they going to prove or otherwise what job a persons parents did when they were 14? Ask for payslips? References from Dave to confirm that yes, Robert was a bricklayer? And how will they prove that’s a genuine reference. Or what about if he managed the brick laying company, what does that mean? Such BS.. 🫣

Agree with all this, also if he wants to work in the civil service the fast stream is just one option. He might also want to apply for Executive Officer or Higher Executive Officer roles on civil service jobs website, that way he has more control of what role he gets and people still get promoted very fast that way!

@Annoyeddd civil service doesn't work like that - I was promoted on mat leave twice, I had two 16 month mat leaves about 6 months apart, and my kids are still little.
Turn over is high there is lots of opportunity to move up internally, especially with external recruitment freezes.

Poor ickle middle class white male with a degree/masters.

Tbh even if he doesnt get on the fast track, if he is as motivated, as intelligent as you claim and flexible he'll be able to go up the grades quite quickly anyway.

There are different routes to getting into the civil service. My nephew proceeded through several interviews on FS but was rejected at the final stage. He is not white, so you see it's not the white people who gets rejected only as you imply. Anyways, he then applied to the Government Economics Service scheme and got a job. The security clearance took five months.

FrenchandSaunders · Today 08:48
My CS department is full of young white poshos, cluttering up the communal fridges with their oat milk and quinoa

OMG! Poshos in the workplace! Maybe knock up a meccano guillotine and leave it next to the oat milk (or Lego? Do Lego make guillotine kits?).

Oh yeah, tell poor kids to apply without providing them with the social, cultural and financial capital that rich kids have and call it “equal”. What utter nonsense.

It’s not equalising the playing field. The rich privately educated are unaffected and keep their privileges,huge advantages and over representation. The squeezed middle however whose kids are already contending with lower loans on tight incomes, no contextual offers, increasingly over stretched parents juggling everything to keep a roof over heads with zero help are pushed further down. It’s just shuffling places and the rhetoric is very much the squeezed middle doesn’t matter.

Why can’t equalising the playing field ever mean actually targeting the top which is the sector that is over represented?

Ursula von der Leyen managed it. Seven lots of maternity leave and a promotion after each one. But yes, for most of us that doesn’t happen!

The BBC article says it what your parents did at age 14 so I guess if your parents were 'trades' you would pass, toolmaker comes to mind.

Quite. It really is high school politics from Labour. They are imbecilic.

They won't be able to get their foot in the door at all if they are excluded from internships and recruitment processes.

It's not equalising the playing field, it's just stacking it against a different group of people.

As I've said above outreach is the way forward - get into schools and colleges in poorer areas and tell the kids to apply. But don't tell the kids in the better off areas that they can't apply at all.

It may be hard for the MN psyche but to get to higher levels in most careers you have to have the experience etc.
A person who takes off a years maternity leave (twice) and works part time isn't going to climb that greasy pole as quick as someone who doesn't.
The resident doctor training contract specifies this so anyone (male or female) working less than full hours will have to take longer to complete specialty training plus has to complete all of their skills assessments

The problem with all of this is how do you define "working class"? Someone who lives in a non-affluent postcode? Someone whose parents didn't go to university?

But then if my plumber dad makes lots of money and sends me to private school, am I still working class? Probably not, because they'll screen out private schools. But if we live in a "naice" postcode, what then?

I think it's a silly idea. Outreach is a good idea, go into areas where you don't historically get lots of applications and do presentations to the kids there to get then to apply. But don't tell anyone else that they can't apply. This is only for internships but I know of other organisations that won't let anyone who's not from a "socially mobile" background apply at all, and I don't think that's fair.

There seems to be a move towards making people downwardly mobile.

What utter nonsense. Equalising the playing field does mean the odds will be stacked against other groups. They may just have to start working as hard as underrepresented groups already do to get their foot in the door.