To think Dominic Cummings needs a clip round the ear?

[MoltoAgitato]

I mean, really, who does he think he is? He looks like Chris Evans’ scruffier older brother (with apologies to Chris Evans) and behaves like someone who wasn’t allowed into one of those dining societies at Oxford and is now extracting Revenge of the Nerds. And what’s with the privately educated, Oxford graduate bemoaning the high numbers of privately educated Oxbridge graduates in the Civil Service? A complete lack of self awareness to realise he is the problem.

I do think that the Civil Service will have him for breakfast though.

Jolly you're confusing 'thorough processes' with designed in such a way as to disadvantage women; minorities; people from deprived areas and people with learning disabilities (eg dyslexia). Do you think a process that excludes is worth it because you can't weed out the cocky and entitled at interview stage?

KatyCarrCan

In what way am I confusing things? In what way do you think DC deciding he is going to hire and fire whoever the hell he wants will help minorities, people from deprived areas and people with learning disabilities?

^As for the election, I don't think that was DC.

Erm, say what now^

Laurie iirc the Tory election campaign wasn't led by Dominic Cummings. The branding; the social media strategy; deciding to sideline JRM etc, was led by a group of young Australians who had helped elect the Australian PM.

Tory election campaign wasn't led by Dominic Cummings

As Boris special advisor, he was all over it

Sure other people had fancy job titles.

But really, you think he’d step back from the most important task Boris had to achieve? Really?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1216629/general-election-2019-boris-johnson-dominic-cummings-results-polls-spt/amp

From his blog:

"there can be no statistical analysis of successes because they are so rare"

Erm... success has been shown again and again to depend on great leadership (at whatever level).

And you're not it, Dom.

Why does he work for the Conservative party if he’s so against Oxford/Cambridge and posh people. He’s one himself isn’t he?

Are you aware that MPs often advertise on their own blogs for staff? Isn't that for their own staff? Not for Civil Service staff?

The point is that people who are happy for a powerful man to tear up established processes in a whim just so they can be hired in preference to candidates who do actually demonstrate the competencies and attitudes required by the institution they are applying to, will often be people who can’t demonstrate them, who just believe they are entitled to jump every line because they’re clever. And those types of people - like Cummings - might well be bullies and egomaniacs.

But what makes you think that these “established processes” are all producing the right candidates? It is so easy to game answers to competency questions and practise ways to demonstrate the right attitudes etc and I’ve sat in on so many public sector interviews in which my toes curl at the dreariness of the answers and the dreariness is the questions. My organisation for example is looking at different ways to get better people into the system because the same old “established processes” are producing the same old established applicants, and it’s not what we need.

Believing in doing things in a different way doesn’t make people “bullies and egomaniacs”. It might just make them people who don’t have the time or inclination to devote a week to filling out an application form.

My only experience of the Civil Service in Government is Yes Minister.

I don't know what Sir Humphrey would make of him.

I do like the quote about impartiality.

Sir Humphrey: My job is to carry out government policy.Hacker: Even if you think it's wrong? Sir Humphrey: Well, almost all government policy is wrong, but… frightfully well carried out.

And when Bernard asks him about morals..

Bernard: If it's our job to carry out government policies, shouldn't we believe in them?

Sir Humphrey: Oh, what an extraordinary idea! I have served 11 governments in the past 30 years. If I'd believed in all their policies, I'd have been passionately committed to keeping out of the Common Market, and passionately committed to joining it.

I'd have been utterly convinced of the rightness of nationalising steel and of denationalising it and renationalising it.

Capital punishment? I'd have been a fervent retentionist and an ardent abolitionist.

I'd have been a Keynesian and a Friedmanite, a grammar school preserver and destroyer, a nationalisation freak and a privatisation maniac, but above all, I would have been a stark-staring raving schizophrenic

I quite like him.

jolly I was responding to your point about recruitment processes in corporate environments being 'thorough'. Actually they're designed to keep minorities, women, people with dyslexia; people from deprived areas, - out.

As for Cummings, he can't ignore the Equalities Act or current employment law. He is not above the law. Nothing about his current recruitment campaign (if you can call it that) is obviously breaching legislation.

The problem, as I said upthread, is that people don't like Cummings. That doesn't mean that he's wrong about the civil service needing reformed or that he's wrong about recruitment policies. (actually what he's doing isn't that unusual in think tanks or for MPs). The real issue is what the civil service should look like and I think that's where people should be focusing.

Calling DC names and scaremongering that employment legislation will change, doesn't achieve anything except to encourage inertia. Rather than complaining and swearing, proposing alternatives or pointing to how other civil service departments have been successfully reformed would be much more beneficial.

Otherwise, what happens is lots of people waste a lot of time shouting whilst all the changes slip through. Being part of the conversation actually means bringing something to the table other than name-calling.

But if you think current recruitment policies work then yy I don't agree but that's because I work with minorities, women and people with learning difficulties. I see how the current processes fail them.

But what makes you think that these “established processes” are all producing the right candidates?

I don’t, and I didn’t say they did. I haven’t said no reforms are needed. Cummings isn’t after reform; he’s after destruction of process to enable him to do whatever he wants.

It might just make them people who don’t have the time or inclination to devote a week to filling out an application form.

I don’t think anyone should have to spend a week filling out an application form. But I do think the willingness to do so shows something about how much they value the job and respect the institution. By all means, streamline processes, but deliberately hiring people who can’t follow them? Disaster.

Actually they're designed to keep minorities, women, people with dyslexia; people from deprived areas, - out.

Substantiate that, please.

As for Cummings, he can't ignore the Equalities Act or current employment law. He is not above the law. Nothing about his current recruitment campaign (if you can call it that) is obviously breaching legislation.

You think it’s within the law to specify “recent graduates” or say the person you hire will struggle to have a girlfriend or boyfriend, or that you’ll bin them if their face doesn’t fit?

And no, I don’t like him. I think he’s a bullying, egomaniac twat. That doesn’t mean I’m unreceptive to discussions about Civil Service reform. I just don’t agree with his way of going about them.

He always reminds me of the idiot political adviser sidekick in Yes Minister. The difference is that he's been allowed much more power because of Johnson's inherent laziness, and he's considerably more dishonest.

Are you aware that MPs often advertise on their own blogs for staff?

So? Not sure of your point? MPs staff aren't civil servants. Nor is DC for that matter .He's a non- neutral political spad (special advisor). So he wont actually be able to directly employ any civil servants.

Just read that job ad. He’s in love with his own cleverness. What a twit. Embarrassing.

jolly I'm amazed that you have worked in recruitment and yet aren't aware of the ways in which the processes discriminate against the groups I highlighted, from advertising wording which favours 'male' words to reliance on written and timed assessments; from failing to offer adjustments to providing letters not in Plain English and with unclear/complicated instructions; from not offering flexible working or childcare provision, etc.

A very basic introduction to how recruitment impacts women is here Improving Diversity in Recruitment

For people with dyslexia, this is one of many articles/documents/studies that highlight how recruitment drives often fail them eg ‘Jobseekers with dyslexia may be at a distinct disadvantage, not because they are wrong for the role, but because of processing data issues. And, despite the Equality Act, some recruiters may still be indirectly discriminating against them as a result.’

Reed Dyslexia

Discrimination against travellers in recruitment and in the workplace . Plus discrimination against people who have a criminal conviction.
Workplace and recruitment discrimination

These are short articles but there are many more detailed studies available.

I do think the willingness to do so shows something about how much they value the job and respect the institution.

Yes, I agree. It’s a way of establishing motivation and a degree of enthusiasm for the role.

But you also have to bear in mind that sometimes the best people aren’t actively looking for a new job. What about people who are already happily employed elsewhere, or entrepreneurs, or people in research or entirely different fields who wouldn’t normally think about the sort of role you’re recruiting for? These people might be much more willing to send in a quick CV and have a conversation, and very actively put off by having to fill in 3 paragraphs on “why I want to join the civil service”. Again, this does not in any way make them more likely to be bullies and tyrants. It makes them innovative and busy and pre-occupied, and in recruitment it’s your job to find a way to their door, rather than the other way round.

I think he’s sexy & edgy and very refreshing.

If you find manipulative, arrogant lying bigots sexy, knock yourself out.

Jolly

It’s current legislation that anyone can be fired within their first 2 years of employment without any particular reason given.

It’s life 🤷‍♀️

The response to that blog from the Union representing senior civil servants sums it up quite nicely.

'Responding to the blog, the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said Mr Cummings had not clarified how new recruits would be selected or what their role within government would be.
Dave Penman, the union's general secretary, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "The civil service is recruited on merit, it's a really fundamental principle.
"You are employed in the civil service because of what you can do, not what you believe."
"If you surround yourself with people who are recruited simply because they believe the same as you believe, and whose employment is at your behest, is that the best way for the civil service or advisers to speak truth unto power?
"I don't think it is, and I think some of those approaches are quite dangerous as well."

The attacks on the civil service, the judiciary, anyone who's job it is to be impartial are actually quite sinister and a very good indication as to how this Govt is planning the next 5 years!

Tbh the civil service has massively expanded in recent years as a direct result of Cummings’ actions (Brexit) and is constantly recruiting to get this task of mammoth and pointless complexity done.

I would think the Civil Service would be more at risk of massive cuts/change if another party had got in and cancelled Brexit. At the moment they are needed for lots of wheel re-inventing.

Some of the suggestions like every civil servant re-examined for their position annually are just daft. What would be the point of such a vast and expensive exercise that would get in the way of actually delivering change and retaining expertise?

This is classic Dom - while his making a lot of noise over this it’s elsewhere he wants to make changes. I think reduction of cabinet/ministers is on his list. But many in the Tory party hate his guts and once he’s ‘delivered’ Brexit will he still be useful? The knives will be out.

Current wisdom in HR research is that a much wider focus on inclusion is needed in recruitment, because people from a wide variety of backgrounders, etc., will bring differing perspectives to problems. DC clearly doesn't agree with that.