To wonder what it's like working for the civil service?

[malificent7]

I do enjoy my current role in healthcare but i've been hearing about how good the perks of the civil service are.
Tbh i know nothing about it and I suppose there are a wide range of roles, pay grades etc. Please can you all tell me what it's like? Good and bad.

Sorry to hear that, @Parsley1234. My DH is very happy in the CS, but he has vowed that he will never work in the DWP. My job brings me into a contact with a lot of problems created by the DWP, and I know some ex-DWP staff - what you say does not surprise me at all

The civil service is quite dispiriting! I joined nearly 5 years ago in a very male dominated policy area and crikey there are some very mediocre blokes who have failed up (notoriously hard to get rid of anyone in the cs so challenging personalities/poor performers are just moved around). Very risk adverse, very small c conservative, clunky, acronym ridden and digitally illiterate. The work is fascinating though but painfully slow to make any kind of meaningful difference. SCS still not diverse and so many weird ways that immediately make anyone not from a middle class background and top university feel an outsider. If i hadn't a career in the real world before joining I would leave!

@minou123 HMRC? 😂

We have worked every day of the pandemic, no furlough for us and it’s been busier than ever due to covid / other world events

I wasn't furloughed either but that's just because I don't work in a industry that the gov closed. I don't feel bitter about it.

We have worked every day of the pandemic, no furlough for us

That's normal in fairness, if you aren't in specific sectors that weren't allowed to operate.

@Parsley1234

DWP taken on as a work coach in Covid after losing 3 businesses and always been self employed -well where do I start 😬 inept organisation dreadful inept management with not a GCSE is business amongst them I would wager total lack of urgency the IT is a complete joke and no training resulting in me having a filing system which others may know as deletion no one has asked me about any email they have sent for 8 months. There were 23000 work coaches taken on less that 10000 remain it’s a dreadful organisation on a positive you don’t need to do alot can get away with doing nothing money is ok flexi time of which you’re in charge of your own is good other staff some are ok sadly not my office which is terminally dreadful and I can honestly say I am completely fucked off and a shadow of who I was

Work coach and DWP are known to be among the worst options for CS jobs. Other roles aren't as bad, not brilliant but not as inept.

I worked in a job centre for 14 years, and for the first 12 I loved it. Yeah, there are some shit staff who wouldn't last two minutes in the private sector but have been poorly managed so get away with doing fuck all. Some of the managers are "yes people" and so promotion on temporary detached applications can be a popularity contest. However, in my opinion and my district, the permanent jobs tended to go to people who were better suited to the role.

The managers I had were really supportive of mental health issues which was great but sadly did mean some people took the piss. Likewise, it's v supportive for parents and working patterns, time off etc which again did lead to some people taking the piss.

The customers were everything from the loveliest people who were going through a terrible time and that you really got a sense of fulfillment from helping, to vile human beings who would make your skin crawl (paedophiles, rapists etc)

Sadly over the last year or so in my office, a change in higher management made the office a horrible place to work. Loads of my colleagues have left, including me. I would have been happy to stay there longer but the district manager and his sycophants ruined it and it actually makes me sad cause my office was such a good place to work and the majority of us always supported each other.

I am now in a different CS department and it is awesome. My manager is supportive and is really keen on helping staff develop. She wants to overhaul the section to get rid of the bureaucracy (as much as possible) and streamline things. She's willing to tackle poor performance but is open and available if anyone needs her help. I actually look forward to work in the morning and am excited about what is coming up.

Sorry, this is a really long post! Basically, TLDR it totally depends on department and management. You will always have benefits such as flexi, pension, ability to move departments, but other than that, it can be the most rewarding job or the most frustrating.

I've joined civil service a couple of years ago after being in private sector for years.

It's a complete change of pace. I've come in at a much more junior level than I usually work at and it's really frustrating having to go through a million managers to get approval to change or do something that I can do with my hands behind my back. They're not very good at utilising skills that come in.

Definitely feel frustration with the "lifers". Performance management non existent and there are so many people who wouldn't last a month in the same roles in private sector.

However there are positives! Brilliant pension, great flexibility, 6 months full pay for maternity.

The pay is shocking but I joined for the flexibility and family friendly policies and they have made it worth it for me. I can't see myself staying once I have older kids though; I'm too bored of the slow pace and miss working in a dynamic environment

@Youaremypenguin I know it’s too sad we deal with really vulnerable people and that part of my job I loved but I’ve been moved to mop up kickstart and I just rant every day at the mess lack of integrity and accountability. We have two new high up managers both have never worked anywhere else joined at 16 and are happy about it jeez what a joke

@TheKeatingFive

We have worked every day of the pandemic, no furlough for us

That's normal in fairness, if you aren't in specific sectors that weren't allowed to operate.

I think the poster is referring to how lots of us will no doubt have experienced the 'lazy civil servants sitting at home doing nothing' comments.

It's been a comment made about many different sectors and we are all allowed to defend ourselves against it.

Oh and no we didn't get furlough or time off when isolating as we could WFH. I know managers who have actually asked how long people will be in hospital for and if they're in a sideward/private room then why can't they do a few hours 🙄.

Work pressures are incredibly high and like I said earlier you don't get thanked for anything. Its all "stick", there's no "carrot".

Sickness policy is tight where I am and very unforgiving but everyone is in the union for this very reason.

You have to shut up and get on with it (learning to swallow the frustration) while also knowing when to fight you're corner. I'm in it for the job security, pension and flexible working. Its not for the job satisfaction 😉

It's been a comment made about many different sectors and we are all allowed to defend ourselves against it.

But 'I worked during the pandemic and didn't get furloughed' isn't exactly a great defence. Unless your sector was shut down, everyone did that.

I’m in a Government agency rather than a Department so slightly different but on CS T’s and C’s and we work closely with our colleagues in the Dept.

Pros -
Pension
Holidays - 33 days plus bank hols.
Flexible working (although not proper flexitime)
Home working 3 days out of five.

Cons -
Lots of ex Dept. staff working for us who have a completely different approach to working - either dogmatic to the extreme or bone idle.
Very hierarchical - Chair will speak to SoS, CEO will speak to Director General. God forbid our CEO could speak to the SOS without going through our Chair.
Inability to want to change or improve - lots of “well, we’ve always done it this way”.
Very little autonomy - to change the layout of a board report template we are having to get it approved by our Executive Director’s meeting, then the finance committee at our parent Dept. And then the same at HMT. I’ve been at my employer for two years and it’s still not been signed off.

[quote Parsley1234]@Youaremypenguin I know it’s too sad we deal with really vulnerable people and that part of my job I loved but I’ve been moved to mop up kickstart and I just rant every day at the mess lack of integrity and accountability. We have two new high up managers both have never worked anywhere else joined at 16 and are happy about it jeez what a joke[/quote]
You don't get accountability in any area of government. I worked private sector until 3 years ago and it's been a huge culture shock. I was top of my game and but it means nothing.

Policy know best! Regardless of how educated, experienced you might be. Regardless of research, dynamic thinking or the need for change. You get none of that. It just clunks along in its inept ineffective way.

Some things that are unbelievable
We all have to do an apprenticeship in customer service level 2 even if we have a degree because our salary is paid by dept of education we get a day off a week to do it we all do nothing that day it is so basic
We were all given surface pros just dumped on our desks a year ago nobody took the id number so no one knows who has which one and guess what nobody cares
We are targeted on 10 min appts we are mandated to bring in everyone in for a work search review there was a tube fed wheel chair user last week in the job centre
We have overtime on a Sunday double time all they do is book appts that have to be cancelled as they are always wrong
Christmas 2021 I was paid triple time to be in the office on 3 dates as no one wd come in
The culture is one of micro management and pointless form filling as said before my filing aka deletion is going really well what’s started as a joke I’m stringing it out to see what happens while applying for other departments

It’s really easy to hide in plain site as there is no appetite for change none whatsoever it’s unbelievable. The rate of sickness and stress is through the roof I’m really working out my options I might just go suck if I’m leaving anyway it’s completely broken me I am a differeperson

I work for an arm's length agency - so not technically civil service but we have some of the same systems, and the same rules.

I used to work in the private sector, and have also briefly worked at a council.

Public sector pros (in my experience):

Making things better for people
Lots of training opportunities
Opportunities to move around different work areas
Flex, good annual leave, some overtime, pension (LGPS so not quite as good as civil service I understand)
Job security
Very understanding and good networks to support protected characteristics etc
Interesting work most of the time
Some very good colleagues
Support professional development including membership of professional organisations, managerial apprenticeship etc

Cons
Pay in my agency very inflexible - no pay bands so no increase unless you get a new role moving up a grade. Very little inflationary increases too so pay erodes over time
Projects and temp promotions are usually based on short term funding which makes it hard to plan
Can be very slow, inflexible, red tape, and risk averse

My DD started with the Civil Service as a graduate economist in September. She loves it.

CS or related for nearly 20 years.

Good:

• Flexible working (PT, job shares, flexitime etc)
• At middle/senior levels lots of responsibility and usually freedom to decide how you work
• Supportive of working from home whilst home schooling during lockdown
• Good training
• Really interesting work that makes a material difference to the world.
• Bright dedicated colleagues
• Pension scheme fairly good (although no longer final salary)
• Diversity improving.

Less good:

• Never being able to make a political comment again and being so so careful about what you post or like online. This is seniority dependent though.
• Things take a really long time to change or put things into effect. The problems are fast moving, solutions usually not.
• You've got to be able to work for whoever is the government of the day, whether you agree with them or not, and do your best
• Lack of pay rises for many years in austerity, and even the few years we've had pay rises, they've been tiny (1% or so, even for top performers)
• Stressful as so much to do, not enough time or resource, and you're fighting the inertia or an enormous body on everything
• A political change can destroy everything you've been working on for years
• Reading things you know to be false in news/twitter etc and never being able to set the record straight

Pay I'll deal with separately as it depends on seniority. For a low-middle ranking staff member the CS pay is fairly good compared to the private sector. However if you've a degree or two and are used to professional or corporate roles, the pay is pretty laughable in comparison. It's good as in above average across UK, but a lot less than if you went over to the corporate world with the same skills and experience.

Working conditions similar: Low - middle grade CS it's more of a 9-5 job (or whatever flexible contracted hours you agree), and overtime is paid and agreed. But once in senior management to senior civil service then it's the job that never ends and for all the talk of work life balance, you will do many more hours, weekends etc. Because the job is important, and impacts lots of people or situations, there's a sort of moral guilt that means you always just do 'one more thing'.

No overtime pay at senior levels but a heck of a lot of unpaid overtime. If you worked out my hourly rate I probably pay my cleaner more.

DH and I have similar educational backgrounds, age, seniority, he is corporate, I am CS. We both have a lot of responsibility, similar levels of difficulty, work similar lengthy hours. He earns nearly 3 times my FT salary, and his goes up by a fair amount each year. We joke (though it's not funny) that his corporate career subsidises my CS career.

Oh yeah, annual leave is generous.

*I think the poster is referring to how lots of us will no doubt have experienced the 'lazy civil servants sitting at home doing nothing' comments.

It's been a comment made about many different sectors and we are all allowed to defend ourselves against it.*

Yes, it has been a little galling to work through the pandemic, deployed onto critical (but hidden from public view) areas, with 3 times or more work than usual, whilst homeschooling kids, so working all evenings, night etc instead, working through illness, and then for some of the press to talk about the 'lazy' CS.

Flippant point but have also never witnessed such widespread misuse of a PowerPoint slide deck. Copying 2000 words of prose onto slides and reading it out is not a presentation!!

Forty years a civil servant, before I retired. So in the parlance of this thread, I was a "lifer".

One of the things I loved was that in forty years, I didn't do the same job for more than five of them. Moving, within the same department was relatively easy.

And yes, the flexability. In my last four years, worked nine days a fortnight. I had no caring responsibility, but that one extra day meant a lot to me.

I guess as well, the lack of reliance on academic achievments. So, I was the only person in the senior leadership team who didn't have a degree. Past a certain point, my experience in the job and my proven ability at it was more important.

Down side? The wages didn't match up to the private sector. And in some jobs, I was paid to "hold" someone else's opinion.

And changes of government, or reshuffled were a pain. A minister has at best five years to make an impression, usually less, so their desire to move quickly to stamp their authority was frequently thwarted by existing legislation. So the minister would need to convince the cabinet office that their case for change of legislation was more important than her/his colleagues.

Always frustrating, the more senior I became, but always interesting

Pros:

Flexibility
Good pension
Good terms and conditions i.e. mat leave, public holidays etc

Cons:

Pay
Certain areas can be quite hierarchical
Everything is scrutinised i.e. 4 managers reviewing an email and moving full stops around before you can send it

I sometimes feel like you need to fit the civil service culture i.e. always be forward thinking, need to always be wanting promotion and pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It's frowned upon to just be happy and content in your job...

Perks? Don't even get pens these days