To wonder why civil service haters don't understand that cutting 10,000 jobs is going to hurt everyone

[Everythingisnumbersnow]

I can't believe Labour is doing what they're doing

HOW. Has this cropped up on this thread. Ffs.

There are 34,000,000 employed people in the UK. The effect on aggregate demand of reducing that by 10,000 (or 0.03%) will not be ‘catastrophic’. For a start, that assumes that these people are unemployable in any other role. Are they?

Oppose it if you like, but you’ve chosen a very strange rationale.

This would be my concern too. Especially given the antiquated systems in use.

Appreciate that the civil service pension is not the same as the lgps. In the lgps if you are made redundant after 55 you get full unreduced pension. Civil service scheme is not the same and neither is USS.

the vast majority of people however are likely to have much lower pension pots than the average public sector pension. There is no getting away from the fact that it is extremely generous with massive employer (tax payer) contribution rates.

Except a lot of them aren't. Things like legal work was mostly done by consultants because we couldn't get enough. The people who have stayed are comms, project managers and generalists. It was used as a free for all because HR originally put these people on perm contracts rather than temp. We already had people in various teams whose jobs were to work with the EU, they should have been enough once Brexit was done.

I’m guessing you’re talking to people in this way because you’re stressed about your job loss or that of a loved one. I am really sorry about that for you, but this isn’t really necessary.

There’s nearly a million vacancies at present I believe across the country. Civil service staff will have transferable skills plus as I said before there will be natural wastage within the nhs that could be backfilled

it’s a headline figure
But the CS is over staffed

Was so depressed when Labour won, and never thought I would be impressed with Keir, but actually -yes -if he actually carries this through - good man.

Tbf if a company employing 10.000 people was closing down, it would be front of page of all newspaper and not in a positive way. There would be talks of support from the government etc….

Not saying there isn’t a need to reorganise the NHS or that NHS England is the most amazing thing ever.
But 10.000 is a lot all in one go. You need to give that to the OP.

The only thing that I would worry about is that NHS England and health education England have just merged- they do the workforce planning for the NHS. What will happen particularly to the smaller allied health professions if they go? And will this have a negative long term impact on health inequalities? I do agree however that alot of the civil service can be trimmed down and got smaller. (I work for a smaller AHP which do a lot of work with NHS England and health education England in terms of trying to bolster profession numbers as we have a national and international shortage of clinical staff).

You're rude and preachy.

I've worked in the civil service and the private sector and there is no comparison. The public sector is massively inefficient.

If you don't perform in the private sector you get sacked. In the civil service you'd have to do something utterly horrific to get turfed out. I worked with multiple people that were just utterly shit at their jobs, including one whose drunken lunchtime antics caused two days of mayhem in one particular service. He was given a couple of weeks off and then brought back without another word said.

I currently work with someone who has a large group of male friends, who mainly work in public services and a couple in finance. My co worker has to mute their group chat as they are all so very under employed. One boasts about how his work from home job takes a maximum of an hour a day and he gets paid a good whack.

I don't necessariyl believe in small government but I do believe that what we have should operate with the same efficiency as the private sector. I don't think public sector workers having money to spend is a good enough excuse to allow public sector services to be overstaffed but still underperform.

I also don't see why those of us working our backsides off in the private sector should be subsidising the pensions of those in the public sector. Public sector pensions should have the same terms as workplace stakeholder pensions.

@LionME

The civil service employs c half a million people. 10,000 across multiple depts in multiple locations really isn't that much as a total figure.

Civil service job cuts won’t all happen in one go. As for NHS England, I don’t believe its employees are civil servants, as it’s a quango. As government plans to bring NHS England’s work back under government control, I reckon some of the people losing their NHS England jobs will be employed instead by the civil service, thus boosting civil service numbers.🤣

It would be a lot at one site, but the staff involved are almost certainly distributed around the country so the impact would be spread. It's not like the days when a factory or mine closure could decimate an entire town.

I work in the public sector after qualifying in the private sector, the waste and incompetence are absolutely staggering.

NHS England employees are NHS employed staff, @Walkaround is correct. My guess is that at least some of the current NHS England staff will end up DHSC employees.

It’s Mumsnet, it’s inevitable

Don't agree with this. Whole NHS England teams and departments will disappear. It's not just about reducing head count. It's about reducing duplication.

Don’t you think most jobs are like this though? I bet there’s plenty of people in your investment bank who could be argued to be inefficient/surplus.

These are real people’s lives. Families who will struggle to pay bills.

Im not saying it’s not positive for the public sector long term, but it’s bloody tragic for 10,000 workers and their families, especially with the COI. Many of these people will be working hard, it’s not their fault their organisation has suddenly been deemed unnecessary.

As of March 2024 there were 543,000 civil service employees. 10,00 is a drop in the ocean - I expect more than that leave / retire each year. It’s just Starmer try8mg to look tough while doing nothing of any use.

less than 10 years ago there were more than 100,000 fewer civil servants…

But, either way, cutting the number of civil servants will only make the country as a whole better off

The question is, how much of that is a consequence of incompetent Tory politicians making pointless and expensive ideological changes during austerity, letting the most experienced and competent employees go (because they were willing and able to move on elsewhere where their expertise was better appreciated) and leaving behind the less experienced and less competent because they were cheaper and willing to stay in a toxic working environment.

Didn't COVID / furlough show that people actually kept and saved money and / or spent it abroad rather than in this country. The idea had been to keep money flowing but pretty sure it failed.

Public sector staff should have the same rates of pay and bonuses then.

Only 10,000? 😕 Not enough.

NHS England staff are not civil servants.