What's it like to work in the civil service?

[DarDeDisco]

I'm curious as to what it's like to work in the civil service.

I'm going to be upfront and say I don't mean any admin or back office roles. I mean stuff that's directly related to policy

Why do you want to know - are you interested in joining?

Policy roles are "back office" roles...

Public sector policy is dull and slow. If you're looking for fast paced work you'll be better off in the private sector

Every area is different - policy is vast. Narrow it down a little and I can help.

I enjoy it. I’ve worked directly with cabinet ministers and traveled a little around the UK and also abroad in a previous role. Used to network with think tanks and did some joint policy /roundtable events with some. Attended a fair few evening events in Westminster too including policy launches . That was a more events and policy type role and it was a lot!

The role I’m in now is more communications though and I’m not really traveling. it’s also less work overall. Some would find it too slow paced maybe but based on the fact I’m trying to reduce stress and workload it suits me for now.

Really not my experience at all.

@Pollydollydoodle I’ve not found it dull or slow but I work in a ministerial priority area and need to engage across Whitehall, external stakeholders, and overseas partners 24/7 to deliver. I suppose if you’re in HMRC or DWP it could be slow and crap.

Policy encompasses a very large number of roles, it takes a lot of work to implement Government policies or write policy suggestions to take to ministers.

Don’t know, but I would like to find out!

Several departments seem to have posted nothing by way of vacancies for months and the latest headlines were about the Civil Service shedding 10,000 jobs.

Depends where you work .Operations are generally really busy, short staffed and promotion is slow . Corporate jobs are totally different. Niche jobs like the Foreign Office can involve travel.

My sister runs a small team in Whitehall and based on her and her experiences I’d say it was process driven, methodical, bureaucratic, rule based. She seems to spend her time writing up papers, reacting to changes in processes, and finding ways in which other people have broken ‘the rules’, it seems also very difficult to sack under performers in her team.

She talks about moving to the private sector but when she starts to explore she changes her mind: she doesn’t want a target driven environment, she likes clear structure, she enjoys her generous holiday allowance and is decently paid. It works well for her.

I get daily job alerts from the civil service, I don’t really notice if certain departments aren’t recruiting but the vacancies I do see are in a wide range of them.

Yes I’m curious about that 10,000 job cuts I’m hearing about. Wonder when /if it’s going to happen? We were expecting possible redundancies back in 2020/2021 due to Dominic Cummings, then he faded away and it never happened.

Tbh I’d happily take a generous redundancy payment. Do a bit of travelling then try out the private sector and if I didn’t like it I’d reapply for civil service. I’m sure I’d eventually get back in.

I am in my first CS role.
I think it depends which area you're going into, so I can only comment on my experience.

It's very easy to shine in my dept, particularly if you're previously used to deadlines, fast paced work & delivering to a budget. I had 5 'hats' in my old role to fulfil - this one I have 1, that's it. I could do it standing on my head but that makes it hard to feel inspired some days.

It's cumbersome to achieve anything, it all has to be escalated which stops momentum.
There's no appetite to change that - I think some people revel in the endless Teams meetings with no actual deliverables. Again, easy to shine if you're willing to contribute and actually deliver something.

CS look after you very well - every hour you're owed you get, time to volunteer, emergency time off for kids etc. but no private healthcare (because the CS should be ensuring the NHS is fit for purpose), pension is IMO great but many long term employees in the service complain about it. I've been sent on professional training courses in my first few years that I repeatedly asked for in private sector with no joy, so very happy with that.

But I'm here because it's easy, local and I'm not career driven. I get recognition for just turning up and doing what I'm asked to the best of my ability. But I don't love it & really miss the camaraderie and pace of my old work (but not the travel & bullying). I find people in my CS dept are very hierarchical, dry and weirdly siloed (silo'd?) compared to my previous role where we were collaborative & all in it together.

I don't hate it, but I don't rush to recommend it as a place of work. TLDR: I feel like I'm riding a gravy train a bit.

As previous - this is my experience and recollections will differ.

Incredibly bureaucratic, I often felt like I was filling in spreadsheets to justify my role, and no one would ever use the info I sent to the cabinet office.

But extremely flexible, great pension and ok salary.

Changes can be difficult to implement and take a long time, although Covid was quite the eye opener in terms of what we could actually accomplish at speed when we needed to. The digital infrastructure is woefully inadequate, which also feeds into the slow pace of change.

I'm an economist in the private sector (gov depts have been a client at times)

I'm in one of those operational roles you don't want to know about, so not much help unfortunately.

I will say that as a disabled person, my bit of the Civil Service has been very good at ensuring I have the equipment and adjustments I need to be productive. Coming up to 5 years service next month, and can't see myself going back to the private sector any time soon.

Really dull and slow was my experience. I thought it would be less stress, in a way it was. But after a while I found the pace of change annoyed me so much, it was more stressful and lower paid. I went back to corporate 4 years ago and appreciate it so much more. I was in civil serve policy-type job for 5 years.

I love it op. But I work in a fast paced team with lots of deadlines and deliverables and so I don't recognise the dull comments on here.

I enjoy briefing Ministers and solving problems and working with the stakeholders. Depends where you are though - I've worked in the same Dept for nearly 25 years (done approx 12 different roles though).

“Dull and slow” definitely not my experience of 20 years in policy work either but I’ve always been in ministerial priority areas. I think what a lot of folks outside don’t appreciate is how influential ministers are - if they have clout and are interested in and understand the policy, things happen very fast (sometimes too fast IME) indeed.

I work a lot with govt economists - I would say their work is more process- driven and bureaucratic. But that reassures me as a taxpayer - they are the people that make the case to Treasury for spending our money. When the rules are circumvented, corruption sneaks in, as Covid demonstrated.

I do have a very strong interest in politics (even outside of work) and would love to work with elected officials

Okay just to nip this in the bud. Ministerial facing posts face incredibly fierce competition and then, incredible pressures to deliver. It’s unlikely you’ll work directly with Ministers in the CS. For most people, they don’t work with higher than Grade 6.

I’d also suggest you park your politics somewhere else, the Civil Service is impartial. If you want politics, work for an MP directly.

Thank you for this. I would obviously leave my personal politics at the door. I just thought it would be "cool" to be an economist in the government working to deliver on policy objectives and government goals.

Understand I wouldn't be directly working with ministers would be indirectly be helping them further their policy goals.

I work in an ALB (arms length body) that employs a lot of Economists.
I work in Comms at present, which is extremely fast paced, some is very high profile, and I regularly deal with Directors and above, despite being very junior.
Policy doesn't really attract me, but then we don't do as much of that as central "Whitehall", although what we do do can feed into Policy.
A lot of what I do isn't that bureaucratic, but occasionally you do bump into it: purchasing anything is the biggest occurrence.
But at present a lot of jobs are advertised "internal only" or "civil service only". And a real business case has to be made for external recruitment. And lots of people are in temporary positions.