to think Rees Mogg should have better things to do than review all new civil servant vacancies

[cakeorwine]

"He says he will personally review all new vacant posts to see if they can be closed, and wants to re-evaluate the government's network of arm's length "quangos" to make sure taxpayers are getting value for money"

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-60440729

Still - I remember in Yes Minister when Jim Hacker tried to do similar with the Civil Service and they overwhelmed him with information so he couldn't get anything done.

I bet the Civil Service will give him long job descriptions of every new post - and will then need to employ more people to give him these job descriptions.

Will he just spend his days looking at job descriptions, cancelling jobs, and then when an essential job is not filled, not realising the disruption that will bring?

Worth reflecting on the number of civil service jobs that have been created by the wonderful opportunities that a hard Brexit hath wrought, where we now need to run any number of processes, schemes and policies that were previously much more efficiently centrally run out of the EU, or that didn’t exist in the same number because of the single market and frictionless trade.

The friction involves people.

Arm's Length Body reform is already underway and has nothing to do with JRM. The ongoing pay freeze means the only way you can get a promotion in the CS is to move jobs. Staff churn is enormous because of this. Also EU exit dragged 1000s of staff from their day jobs causing huge stresses and strains elsewhere. It's fashionable to blame the CS when ministers want to deflect from their failings.

@TerribleZebra

Arm's Length Body reform is already underway and has nothing to do with JRM. The ongoing pay freeze means the only way you can get a promotion in the CS is to move jobs. Staff churn is enormous because of this. Also EU exit dragged 1000s of staff from their day jobs causing huge stresses and strains elsewhere. It's fashionable to blame the CS when ministers want to deflect from their failings.

JRM doesn't have failings.

Successive governments have said they want to cut quangos then not done so. The Tories have had plenty of time to do so.

@Loopytiles

Successive governments have said they want to cut quangos then not done so. The Tories have had plenty of time to do so.

But the difference is that Smug is going to do so, and if you look at his record you will see that he is always very successful where others aren't.

For example no one else in the UK is as successful as he is at thinking we are in the 19th Century.

@whywouldntyou

FFS our team has been decimated over the past 4 years, down by 2/3rds and we cannot cope. If he were to look at us and say 'they've managed fine for 4 years' and refuse the vacancies our team would go under , we already have issues around stress sickness. How the fuck would he have the foggiest idea how our dept works? Ridiculous.

I was thinking the same. I used to be CS. JRM wouldn't have a clue how our department worked although I'm sure he would take great delight in deleting posts and increasing stress levels.

In the current economic climate only a psychopath would take delight in restricting employment.

jgw1

@cakeorwine

Take employment law and regulation, which the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, briefly flirted with reviewing before being brought into line by Downing Street

I can imagine the Red wall, Blue wall and even the Yellow wall won't be happy to lose any employment rights and regulations.

This was always going to happen with Brexit. It's the reason most Tories wanted it. Can't have the plebs having employment rights. Lets not forget that the very first thing the Coalition government did in 2010 was to increase the amount of time you have to have a job for to two years before you can claim unfair dismissal (in my view you should be protected from capricious sackings from day one!)

Covid has delayed things, but they'll get what they wanted eventually.

In the current economic climate only a psychopath would take delight in restricting employment

change "psychopath" to "Tory MP"

@Loopytiles

Successive governments have said they want to cut quangos then not done so. The Tories have had plenty of time to do so.

The Coalition government had a "bonfire of the quangos" back in 2010/11 - not sure they actually got rid of that many in the end though.

They didn’t!

The Coalition government had a "bonfire of the quangos" back in 2010/11 - not sure they actually got rid of that many in the end though.

But they didn't have the benefit of Jacob's amazing insights.
If those quangos weren't needed in the 19th century, they aren't needed now either.

@BarrowInFurnessRailwayStation

He doesn't have a proper job because he's incapable of doing anything useful.

They should just give him some Lego to play with because that's about his level.

Reviewing all the job adverts and incomprehensible descriptions is the political equivalent of locking him in a room with five and half sets of the Millennium Falcon and one set of instructions for the Death Star.

It's to keep him out of the way.

Apparently he has now been asked to look into the benefits of returning to Imperial measures?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

I read about the Imperial measures... he was TWO at the time.

They hardly taught him imperial measures at Eton did they?

He's a complete plank. I presume they're just finding him things to do, like sharpening the pencils and waffling on about ha'pennies, florins and two bob coins.

Get a grip NE somerset, you're an embarrassment.

@Roussette

I read about the Imperial measures... he was TWO at the time. They hardly taught him imperial measures at Eton did they?

He's a complete plank. I presume they're just finding him things to do, like sharpening the pencils and waffling on about ha'pennies, florins and two bob coins.

Get a grip NE somerset, you're an embarrassment.

Did the Victorians use Imperial measurements?

Who the fuck votes for this tosser?
Can you imagine going into the voting booth and seeing his name on the ballot paper and thinking 'yes please'.
2019 election as well, that was AFTER he had celebrated the expansion of food banks and blamed the Grenfell Tower victims for their own deaths.