Working in the Civil Service AIBU

[WellAlwaysHaveParis]

I’ll be starting a new job in the Civil Service soon, and I’d love to find out a bit about what it’s like before I start.

I got the job offer last month and won’t start until a couple of weeks’ time, so I’m now feeling really keen to finally start and get stuck in.

When I went for an interview at the department where I’ll be working, I really liked the culture and feel of the place.

Would love to hear from people on here who work in the Civil Service though, just so I know a bit about what to expect when I start :)

Also, if anyone has any tips about how I can be as effective as possible in the role from the start, that would also be hugely appreciated :) (I’d prefer not to mention the exact department or role on here, but it’s an entry-level
role).

Thanks :)

Quite a few people switch from HO to FCO and back where I am.

I'm a grade 7 in a fairly new part and I love it. Certainly don't have meetings about folders or key safes though

I worked in the CS for a couple years and left earlier this year as it just wasn't for me - the pay grades are weird and really suck - you basically have to start at the bottom of the grade regardless of what you earned before elsewhere. There are tons of opportunities for training, mentoring, shadowing, secondments etc which is good. Everything revolves around the ministers - literally everything, it's like yes minister, no minister. It takes ages to get anything done - so much red tape and sign off levels and getting hold of senior people can be difficult as they spend all day in hundreds of different meetings. The IT wasn't actually too bad - new macs and iPhones. What I really disliked about it is that 99% of all management - not just senior management are white - it's take a lot for anyone of colour to progress in the CS. Not quite sure why....overall, you'll probably enjoy it...make loads of contacts with the right PA's to get anything agreed, make lots of general contacts and do loads of training! Good luck!

Thanks so much, everyone - your tips are amazing! :) Please do keep them coming.

I’m in the MoD, specifically DE&S and agree with what some pp have said!

A massive pro for me is the flexible working e.g no set hours, can work from home, take days off in lieu etc which is super handy although don’t know if it is the same for the whole CS!

Acronyms, acronyms, acronyms bloody everywhere - and some mean different things depending on who you are speaking to!

Pay and pay rises aren’t great and it can be a mission to get anything done quickly.

IT systems are generally crap. Hot desking can be a pain but I guess these things are also dependent on where you are working.

It takes a bit of getting used to I will admit (I came from private sector) but I like my job and the flexibility it affords me so it’s not all bad!

I been a cs for nearly 4 years across 2 different departments and on the whole I really love it. There are great benefits to be found (flexible working, home working, great development and often progression opportunities, I get a very good salary for what I do and lots of holiday), the pension scheme is good but not under any circumstance golden like it used to be. The cs also comes with its frustrations - yy to the poster who mentioned the endless fucking meetings that could have been an email, and also the levels of red tape that make work slower and more complicated than it needs to be. And it can be quite thankless work at times. Generally the public think we are a bunch of pencil pushers but I work extremely hard in a pressured environment and take pride in the work I do.

Good luck in your new role op. I wish you all the best.

@WellAlwaysHaveParis I meant the actual Ministers (so the Secretary of State and the junior ministers), in the civil service the team that looks after a Minister is called their Private Office (so a Private Secretary, a couple of Assistant Private Secretaries and a Diary Secretary). Worth knowing their Private Office, too, but particularly useful to know who your Ministers are if you’re dealing with Parliamentary Questions. That way, you’ll spot their names in Hansard.

A lot of negativity here. I work for DfE and love it. Really progressive and inclusive culture. Lots of opportunities to progress if you want it. It's also really flexible and fantastic to fit round family life. PQs will give you a lot of insight into the departments policy areas.

That sounds fab, pheobe :) that’s the kind of feeling I got as well when I went for the interview - it seems really inclusive and generally a nice and friendly department.

I work in DfE, its definitely one of the better departments, with a lot constantly going on!

Thanks Guacamole :)

I work in a different EU jurisdiction as a CS for the past 19 years.

Look around, take an interest in the people around you, learn from those who have done it before.

It is a fantastic career. Be prepared though for boring bits. And lots of "copy and paste" if you are doing PQs (using precedent rather than reinventing the wheel).

But while Ive done plenty of humdrum stuff, Ive also had a fair amount of interesting stuff to do (I'm sitting in a hotel room as I type, as Im off at another meeting abroad - and I've had various different groups over the years within my Department, some with travel and EU/International stuff, others not, some with dealing with Parliament stuff/others not).

Good luck!!

Favourite House of Commons Library on every web browser you use.

If it is anything like my dept policy and legislation changes every 2 seconds so keeping up is a daily task. It is great fun though and there is no time to get bored.

I worked at DfE for several years in London. Great opportunities to progress IF you have the skills set that are required at senior levels ie cerebral, abstract thinker, super smart. If not it can be hard to progress beyond middle management. Pay is also poor unless you get to grade 6 or above. Would totally agree about the comment above regardless grade inflation and the obsession with grades.

Thanks again, everyone :) do let me know if you have anything else to add!

I’m honestly surprised that another poster said they like DE&S! The recent staff survey showed one in four people want to leave within the next year and that 60% of people are unhappy with pay and rewards.

It’s a hugely inefficient place. Nothing works, including IT, HR is useless.

I’m working somewhere much more creative now and can’t imagine being in a rush to go back to the CS. I think DE&S is one of the worst Departments though.

Plenty of opportunities for career progression - in my team I regularly take on new entrants to the civil service, keep them for a year and then gently encourage them into a new job on promotion. Six in the last three years. I would say that Fast Streamers can be hugely entitled and incredibly irritating with absolutely no self-awareness. Not all of them, but enough to put me off ever bidding for one in my team. It’s not new though, my intake was just as annoying and that was over ten years ago now.

Are you in sanctuary buildings? Love that building.

How is HR handled in the UK civil service? Has it been centralised as much as is logistically possible?

Yep I will be, @BeanCalledPickle :) it’s lovely, isn’t it?

I remember going there for the interview, and just feeling amazed and really excited by it all (saddo!) It just feels like this huge hive of activity, and I’m really looking forward to being a part of it.

I’m sure I’m looking at everything through rose-tinted glasses though - don’t think I’m banking on inevitable job stress! Has anyone got any tips on dealing with job stress by the way, please? Such as when you’re waiting on information or responses from people, for example, or when you’re snowed under with work and you’re a bit overwhelmed?

In terms of job stress, i accept that theres days where i’ll be in the office for longer than my contracted hours. But working on flexi time you can build hours up and take days off, which i do regularly.

Your deadline is 2pm Tuesday (say). So you need to clear it higher up that morning. So you need to finish by 11am (possibly 10 when starting out). So you need Monday afternoon to put it together. So your email asking for input says (deadline in bold) that you need it by 11am on a Monday morning. You'll get it by lunchtime, mostly. But once 11 comes, you can email a polite reminder or phone the person to check when you can expect it.

There will be a system that everyone uses, ask around and they'll tell you how it works. That's mostly how I manage my Pqs and speech requests. Build a cushion of time to work on it myself and leaving a cushion for approval before the actual deadline. And putting my deadline clearly in the original request, as it allows everyone to prioritise their workloads.

There will probably be standard answered to use as well, that you can either just add in the relevant specific information or use as the basis of the answer and just tweak according to what is asked.

But polite requests, clear deadlines, and cheerfulness when chasing all help to get good results. And acknowledging that occasionally someone else is swamped and that particular one may be a last minute job on this occasion - but if you can keep your cool about that (usually rare - in my CS dept anyway), they will remember and try to prioritise yours in the future.

And you can ask for help - either to chase the information or to check the answer especially if it is being done at the last minute.

her career progression has virtually ground to a standstill while idiot graduates are fast tracked

WellAlways unfortunately ^ this attitude of resentment at other people's success, is common across the CS, often because long standing employees are under the delusion that just because they've been there for years means they are automatically suitable for promotion, when the likelihood is they aren't.

CS have a strict protocol (something like 4 stages to get through) so that internal candidates get first dibs at vacancy opportunities, and only after stage 4 hasn't resulted in identifying the right candidate, then the recruiting team puts the role out to External. Plenty of opportunities for promotion so careers don't necessarily have to grind to a standstill.

As for the reference to idiot graduates, that sounds like sour grapes ....

How is HR handled in the UK civil service? Has it been centralised as much as is logistically possible?

CS HR and core functions have gone through a transformation in recent years, so yes HR has been centralised, to gain efficiencies = better value for tax money

www.gov.uk/government/collections/civil-service-human-resources-function

For ex: MOD has a centralised Service Centre which incorporates HR functions called DBS Defence Business Services. I'm sure other govt departments operate their own dedicated HR functions along similar lines.

Career civil servant here. Welcome to the fold.

Write down every single acronym you come across & find out what it means!
Some of them will be 2 different acronyms for the same thing, particularly where Directorates or Units have had multiple name changes.

Always factor in the time you need for your bit of the process, as pp said above.

And the cafe at the Abbey Centre is well worth knowing about.