I’ve really messed up at work

Our overtime bill on one project got so high that half way through implementation of a new system, management suggested we take flexi instead. Both my boss and I told them that's fine, we'd see them in the New Year (this was in September). The next suggestion was that as most of this overtime was weekend working, maybe we could take a day off during the week. Bearing in mind that for me both Saturday and Sunday were at double time, and for my boss Time & a half Saturday and double time Sunday, that would have us in 1 day and 1.5 days a week respectively until the project was over the following spring. Oh, and we'd need assurance that we could carry over our full amount of leave into the next year rather than 5 days only, as neither of us had been able to take more than a day or so and that had been carried over from the previous year. We got the money!

Current Local Government role there's no overtime pay at all. And I'm damned that I'll do extra hours for no pay on the pittance they call salary at my grade.

There was in mine, one of my direct reports managed to rack up the biggest overtime bill across the whole LA; had been milking the system for decades.

Tell your union rep. It may be your boss doesn’t like you showing up that your colleagues are lazy and inefficient. What a perverse situation! Good luck OP.

If you try to be autonomous in the public sector or come up with ideas management see you as a piss taker.

Maybe your predecessor just automatically helped the other team members without making a fuss about it and that’s how he/she kept themselves busy without bothering the boss about it. Maybe just complete your work then go and help others. Isn’t that team work?

I think some of these responses calling OP unwise or naive are quite unfair.

It's fair to point out that the public sector often has inefficiencies and that there seems to be certain expectations/etiquette around commenting on this (I work in CS and am not surprised in the slightest by OPs original post).

But the key thing is OP hasn't done anything "wrong" - being bright, hardworking and keen to maximise her contributions to her organisation is very commendable!

OP, I think you may find life in the public sector quite difficult (I say this because I have struggled myself; I started out keen to work hard and make a difference and eventually found myself feeling furious that I was doing more work than better-paid colleagues, solving the problems caused by the messes they made and getting lots of thank yous but seeing no action taken against slackers and incompetent colleagues. For personal reasons (maternity pay/flexibility/lack of corresponding role in the private sector on similar pay and terms) I have chosen to stay and have recently found a role where I feel more effective. That said, this came after years of struggling with my 'professional identity' and seesawing between trying to take advantage of the extra time afforded to me by roles where I was underutilised and feeling guilty/lacking purpose by being underutilised.)

Perhaps see how the conversation goes with your manager's manager, be prepared to "revise" your original comments and perhaps play to their ego a bit. Hopefully you can come away with a project or training opportunity to fill your time a bit more, then perhaps take some time to reflect by yourself on your career goals? You may decide the role is right in the short/medium term to gain experience and you can use the extra time to upskill (theres often loads of training opportunities in public sector so maximise this if you can?) You may decide you want to move to a more efficient organisation, now or in future. You may decide you'll stick it out and eventually be senior enough to make a difference!

Whatever you do, I hope you have a great career and we can only hope the public sector shifts more towards your way of thinking so the public sector can actually deliver some of the services this country desperately needs!!

I think there's a bit of confusion going on about job titles and job roles here.

You can easily be at managerial grade with no staff to manage - my DBro is a G7 (was called Principle) and has no staff, but the level of work he does merits that grade.

Also, the word "department" can mean many things to different people. It can mean an entire Government department like HMRC or MAFF, it could mean a large functional area within a Department like overseas trade or IT, or it could mean to some as little as a small area within a section within a function inside a department.

If the OP gave us a little clarity around level e.g. HEO/SEO/G7, we may be able to understand a bit better.

Your thread title and OP is literally you worrying you will be made redundant for flagging this.

I suspect your predecessor also found themselves underworked and strung things out and looked busy enough while doing personal things.
If your Manager has so readily agreed with you, they likely knew but didn't address it.
Big boss is now embarassed and you have given them a headache that they need to do something to restructure the role or work.

You could spend some of your spare time upskilling yourself, your team, producing training materials, updating BCP, volunteering to join working groups, sitting on committees, researching new systems, software or processes, drafting some suggested plans to better share the work, improve the culture, improve efficiency.

What do you mean when you say you’re ’in control’ of the department? Are you head of that department? Are you managing staff?

It sounds like you are doing all the tactical, timely work that comes your way and is assigned to you but not doing any strategic work. When I was a head of department, the tactical work and firefighting did not take all my time but there was lots of other stuff I needed to do without people telling me to do it, like thinking about future strategy, process improvement, building relationships with other teams, resource planning, arranging team learning etc. Perhaps you are short of work because you are not doing those other things and only doing what’s directly assigned.

If on the other hand you’re only there to do assigned work, I’m not sure how that constitutes being in control of a department. So it’s hard to make sense of the actual situation.

This is valid if you assume that civil servants are fully aligned to the public's best interest. But I'm not sure that's true.

If someone notices that people have, until now, only been working at 20% capacity, that doesn't reflect well on a manager.

Additionally, senior public sector workers seem to mostly want to increase their headcount. Someone pointing out that the headcount is too high is the opposite of their goals.

OP I am wondering about your ability to accurately read the situation. You've posted that your manager is fuming but haven't given a comprehensive reason as to why. Then when people in the thread have been confused, you've said people are being willfully obtuse. You come across as someone who may take things very literally, and not be as attuned to the complexities of interpersonal dynamics. I'm going to guess there is more to this than has been presented here.

Also, just because you thrive with multiple plates spinning, doesn't mean others do. It may have very well been a full role for the previous worker, if they needed something long term sustainable and not at risk of burn out. I wonder how young or old you are.

Is the big manager by any chance related to your predecessor?
People who hate efficiency are everywhere -but especially in local government and (in my experience) the established side of the charity sector. You go in thinking it's all about public good, but everyone who's been there for years is just there for petty power play.

There's no such thing as overtime pay in my. LA.

💯

That's what I was thinking

I think at this point - when the think tanks are predicting mass unemployment due to AI imminently - as many humans as we can keep in jobs the better. If we streamlined the civil service radically those people wouldn’t easily find other work - and then they’d probably end up on benefits and cost more than now. Government’s aren’t stupid.

“Appalled”, give over.

Good grief, dont attack their overtime pay aswell 🤣

sad and costing us a fortune. Lots of outsourcing by government especially is such a write off in terms of what we get in return.

Big boss is clearly in a happy state of doing feck all (probably worked their way up to that) & now here’s you making work for them (by even having to think about your role). You’ve upset the apple cart… (gravy train)

A friend worked in the public sector and got bollocked by colleagues for working and 'making them look bad' Not great really on their behalf but it meant more people had work, I suppose. He said it was inefficiencies.
But so much more could get done if people actually worked properly and I'm a fan of the public sector.

public sector

• don't stare out the window in the morning.
• why not?
• because then you'll have nothing to do in the afternoon.

And yes I know that's less and less true, and some bits are frantic.

Not RTFT but has anyone mentioned 'empire building'? I took a council job and the staffing didnt make sense. My team of 4 fulltime direct reports were doing the work of 1 person. When I pointed this out, I was sacked (managed out). Then I was told that the more people under a manager, the more they get paid in the bands. Better to replace a boat rocker like me than 3 fulltimers and end up with 5 staff under you.

Our money funds this, it makes me sick.