To ask, if you work in the Civil Service/ BBC etc in London and the SE and are asked to move North will you?

[Flumpaphone]

Ok, I know this might be a bit niche.

Following on from the recent announcements of Treasury and Department of International Trade jobs moving to Darlington and BBC jobs going to Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow, I was wondering if people currently in those jobs (or anyone else who might be asked to move out of London) will/would move?

If you would move - why?
If you wouldn't move - why?

My reason for asking is that I'm in the North and I'm trying to work out if all these announcements are genuinely a good thing for the economy or if the only real beneficiaries will be LNER and the regional Premier Inns for a couple of nights a week.

@Sometimes123 I think you're right to call out comtesse. I thought their comments were extremely rude and ignorant too. They should definitely stay in London and let the opportunities be given to those who would love to live in the North.

I’m in the north but I love London and can see why people wouldn’t want to move.

Manchester is fabulous though!

@NinePremium, I don’t think that relocation was the reason as it was already very expensive here when we moved which was a few years before that. Around here may not be London prices but you can still easily spend over 1m on a nicely done 4bed semi. Our grammar schools have some of the best results in the country and if independent schools are your thing we are also lucky to have Withington Girls and Manchester Grammar a short tram ride away. London friends who wanted St Paul’s for their daughter were advised to use Withington’s past papers. I’ve spoken to quite a few people who relocated with BBC and most were shocked at the prices up here.

I don't think I could bring myself to relocate. I love being in the countryside here but with easy access to London. I love all that London has to offer. I also like not having to travel so far for the various things I do. And that if I needed it I could get to most places on public transport.
Plus the weather .

@HavelockVetinari
That’s great that you are seeing a positive side. The SCS I have discussed it with all seem to be experiencing only negatives and having difficulty recruiting for roles which are London excluded.
I have felt like the overall impression is that it is politically motivated arbitrary restrictions and hasn’t been well thought through in terms of total costs.

Some ridiculous work arounds are being suggested where a job is done majority remotely and all the applicant candidates are London based and don’t want to relocate, so the solution is to say that they have to travel to a different office (where none of their colleagues are located) for no reason at all for an arbitrary amount of days each month, just so their job can be classified as not being in London.

We won’t be relocating as I have a very close family and wouldn’t want to move so far away from them all, but I must admit that I have on occasion looked on Rightmove to see what I could buy in Darlington for the cost of my small London flat, and the difference is astounding.

@MaryThorne sorry I meant those who chose not to as well- I spent a year in London and couldn’t come back up north fast enough! I like my standard of living here

@Flumpaphone on optionality, my impression is they are genuinely trying to make it as optional as possible and combining it with working from home. So you could have teams with some people in London and some in Darlington, but it wouldn't matter too much as we've all shown we can work remotely over the last year. There's a great will to get it working successfully but also scepticism over whether you can really offer the same career opportunities etc away from Whitehall.

@Itstartedinbarcelona

There are also targets in many depts for a percentage of SCS to be based outside of London so that will help to drive the change as they will want their teams around them. As for people having more opportunities in London - because more depts are based there, if there is no recruitment in London as all depts are reducing their London headcount that will no longer be the case.

I think who is SCS in these new offices will be very interesting! Let us face it they are often the most Whitehall of people and need to know the insider stuff to do their jobs. That might be harder to do that sort of networking needed for SCS dependent on their role.

But I reckon operational stuff can be ported out. Why does that have to be in London? There is no real need for proximity whereas the few people who are pretending to be Sir Humphrey will never move from London anyway.

Slightly OT but when the BBC moved to Salford they appointed Peter Salmon Head of BBC North. Big salary I think 400k. Peter is married to Sarah Lancashire the actress who at the time said there was no way they were uprooting from Twickenham for her to go back North. Turned out she was right. Peter commuted or stayed over when required. Seemed the job didn't specify he was required to move so he didn't. He did leave last year for the private sector.

I think the fact that as taxpayers we have to pay towards London weighting and sky-high building costs for tens of thousands of jobs that could be done from anywhere is a bit daft. Secondly the Government might actually invest in the country in a more balanced way if the London centric thinking was abolished. Thirdly if the Government moved out of London other companies would follow further spreading the "talent" and opportunities around the country.

DH is scs and they've been suggesting his team move north for years now. I don't think it will ever happen and even more so since covid. They moved to canary wharf and mainly hot desking so they can't physically fit the full team in on the same day. I think they'll move to WFH 90% of the time with away days in different locations. He won't be moving north of they insisted though, our family is very settled in the SE and we don't need his salary to stay.

I don’t know why ComtesseDeSpair has had a hard time. The reality is there is a bigger tallest pool and more opportunity to move
Between sectors in London. I think some functions could easily move but it is a more attractive prospect to have mobility than to be limited to one or two departments. Also opportunities for partners matter. There might be opportunities in Darlington for a civil servant but what about their significant other? If the partner is on a city salary, chances are they’re not moving. Abigger regional hub would help mitigate against that.

I have friends who have moved to Leeds for civil service roles there. It has worked well for them with cheaper housing but before lockdown they were on the train to London pretty regularly.

@Pedallleur

Slightly OT but when the BBC moved to Salford they appointed Peter Salmon Head of BBC North. Big salary I think 400k. Peter is married to Sarah Lancashire the actress who at the time said there was no way they were uprooting from Twickenham for her to go back North. Turned out she was right. Peter commuted or stayed over when required. Seemed the job didn't specify he was required to move so he didn't. He did leave last year for the private sector.

Even more OT, but funnily enough Peter Salmon lived in Manchester for some years (with his partner of 20 years & their 3 sons, before he went off with Sarah Lancashire...)

@ComtesseDeSpair

That's very patronising! There's plenty of talented people outside of London, and plenty who would prefer not to live in London if the opportunity arose. We left London years ago, professional at top of field!

Ps Darlington is nice as is Stockton and Middlesbrough, right on the edge of the moors too.

I left the civil service six years ago but the Dept I was in had offices in the regions as well as London, and our Directorate was spread across the country.

Does the Fast Stream not still insist on one placement being outside of London? I thought that would get people used to the fact there's life outside of London.

Our department has said 500 jobs will be moving to Glasgow. Apparently no one will be forced to move but I'm guessing more and more jobs will be advertised as Glasgow only (but probably coupled with lots more wfh roles) . However, it's complicated because we also have a lot of people based overseas, so for some people it might be a UK base, rather than where they actually live. I can actually see it being attractive to younger staff- it's a great city.

We won't be moving- I'm not permanent anyway and move in and out of the CS and do some contracting. DP's role is parliamentary (not CS) so needs to be in London. I would actually be up for it but I don't think DP would get another job- he is almost 50 and very specialised.

I don't think people are being rude about Darlington - there is a huge difference between life in London and life in Darlington, that's just a fact. Leeds, Glasgow and Manchester are big cities but Darlo just isn't, and I wouldn't blame someone for not wanting to swap London life for it.

There's huge political pressure to move these type of jobs outside London. I'm not in one but no way would I relocate. Nothing against the North but London is my home.

I would be tempted to move to a Northern City if I was offered but wouldn’t be brave enough. But am not in a happy relationship so depend on my friends too much to consider moving away from them.

Not me. Great opportunity for some but I'm from London, my family are in London, my kids are settled in school/nursery here, and I love the buzz of being in Whitehall and the ease of being able to move between many departments. If my department decided to move all jobs out of London, I'd be looking to move into another dept. My eventual plan is to leave London, but to the south coast, deliberately commutable to Westminster 2-3 days per week. I expect to spend many many years in the civil service but ultimately I will move for what suits me and my household in our non work life, not for my job.

I'm hoping the year spent mostly wfh, plus significant office moves out of London, is going to drive better working practices in terms of keeping non-London colleagues properly in the loop, meaningful promotion opportunities outside of London etc. Many of my non-London colleagues have been understandably frustrated by this, but with the right IT and more critical mass in locations outside of Whitehall, it could and should be so much better.

The trouble is, none of this is new. Comtesse was rude but there's a grain of truth. Generally the regional offices have failed to recruit in significant numbers. Or they recruit people who then leave because they get frustrated by the lack of full career offer. This could be a success but only if ministers genuinely see the northern offices as equivalent and travel there or are happy with zoom. I'd happily WFH forever but it's ministers who generally want us in in person. And ministerial contact is generally what ambitious civil servants want. Plus there's the mix of departments. We don't work in silos so if in person contact is so important that you need a big office at all you can't place it miles away from your OGD colleagues and stakeholders. One big hub in Leeds or similar, yes. A single departmental office in Darlington? I'm yet to be convinced but hope that tech makes it work

@garlictwist

I don't think people are being rude about Darlington - there is a huge difference between life in London and life in Darlington, that's just a fact. Leeds, Glasgow and Manchester are big cities but Darlo just isn't, and I wouldn't blame someone for not wanting to swap London life for it.

This is very true and there were quite a few eyebrows raised that Darlington was chosen rather than Leeds or Newcastle, which I think would have incentivised some of the younger staff who like you say want city life. Then again Darlington may be preferable for families. No coincidence that it is very close to Rishi Sunak's constituency.

Back to glum on about house prices @MarceyMc. I do a London type job but with a "Manchester penalty" like the opposite of a London weighting. It's long struck me as unfair that cost of living in Manchester is just as expensive as London except house prices weren't as bad as London so that was one bright spot.

I keep seeing houses in my area going up for silly money and thinking they will never sell then they do! Its such a shame. I keep thinking it's got to have a natural cap but it hasnt in London. Between that and developers buying to rent the future is insecure rental for many.