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

I think you are probably right. And I’m sure it depends on the team/department.

I know three people in CS who are definitely very effective.

But it's not sudden hacking though. It's over 2 years.

The civil service really do live in a bubble. Out in the real world there’s something called profit and loss and if you don’t bring in enough you’re out.

It’s high time the civil service actually provided value for money, rather than ‘secure jobs and gold plated pensions for us, but not the same conditions for you.’

Why?

I didn’t mind back in the day when’s civil service salary was clearly substantially lower than a company salary at a similar level.

But now? The perks are far better than at most corporates, the pensions are like nothing else (though I’ve read this has recently been reduced but ONLY for new workers, can’t let the gravy train stop for the old timers) and for all of this you don’t actually have to perform.

If there’s zero value you’ve delivered one month to the next, you’re not being fired. You just carry on. It’s a joke. Except it’s not. It’s a very expensive long term day light robbery of tax payers’ money. The civil service is not fit for purpose.

It’s been enlightening reading some of the entitled come backs from one or two old timers on here, assuming a loss of 10,000 jobs is somehow going to tank the economy and ‘affect everyone’.

Enjoy the reality out there we’ve been sucking up for the best part of three decades.

Definitely- I’ve worked in both organisations.

Probably because nobody can see how on earth that would be the case?

This a thousand fold.
Every single person I know or have met who has briefly worked in the CS were utterly shocked and stunned at the waste, ineptitude and incompetence.

The layers of waste are phenomenal. No private sector company could operate or survive operating as the vast majority of the CS does. With competent people operating at full capacity I would imagine you could easily cut the numbers in half. But it would require a completely different mindset to do so.

100% agree.

I heard someone who worked in the CS on the radio a while ago moaning about her salary.

She was admin and I think she said she was earning around £28k. But what she failed to mention and I looked it up myself was that she also had a 29% pension contribution from her employer meaning her package was £36,120 which is pretty good imo. And the pension is index linked for life guaranteed.

I did read a proposal that CS might be given more flexibility whereby they could reduce pension contributions and instead have a higher salary. If in the above example she reduced the pension to 3% like in the private sector, she could increase her pay by 26% to £35,280 which is very good for admin.

And while we’re on about the Civil Service can I just have a final rant about the completely moronic STAR system they use to interview and the ridiculous guff you need to state to prove you’re capable of “delivering at pace” which should read “delivering fuck all and being paid handsomely for the privilege” and other such complete and utter BS.

Example Scenario:
You were assigned a project with a tight deadline. You could say, "When I was assigned a project with a tight deadline, I immediately prioritized tasks, communicated effectively with my team, and proactively identified potential roadblocks. By working efficiently and staying focused, we successfully delivered the project on time and to a high standard”

Someone shoot me now. This isn’t the real world.

“Managing a quality service”. Who makes these these things up?

Show me the money. Show me how much was spent in your salary vs the work your department did that actually ran things well or better than last year.

Show me some numbers. Where do my taxes go, not least on the yearly £11 billion salary bill to U.K. tax payers to keep the civil service going.

The bottom 10% should be managed out on a quarterly basis. Far too much deadwood.

I could go on…

I temped at the DWP many years ago, and my only task was to print out emails for the head of department a few times a day. The rest of the time I just got on with my uni work, easiest job I'd ever had. And they were recruiting for a permanent post-holder for that role. Completely bonkers!

@TrainGame I went through that weird interview system for the 7 week stint I did at HMRC. Part of my role, was photocopying legal bundles for lawyers. There were 2 photocopiers, parked next to each other, so rather than photocopying one page at a time, I set up so I could do 2 sets at a time, one on each photocopier - it halved the time I spent photocopying. My line manager was astounded - she said in 20 years she'd never known anyone photocopy so quickly, or seen anyone work at such 'pace'. I reminded her I'd spent 20yrs in investment banking where that was par for the course😂

😆😆😆 that’s hilarious!!

It does suggest that the CS attracts life’s side steppers. People who’d rather go sideways not up, for fear of reaching any kind of greatness of some sort.

Efficiency seems to be at the very bottom of the list. They make up all these grand-sounding interview phrases to bestow some sort of sense of legitimacy to their work…

Should I have a further whinge about WFH entitlements…? no that’s probably enough rants for one day!

It makes you want to weep reading some of these real life experiences. The photocopying one - WOW just wow. You would think you had invented man's intervention into space. Not just efficiently photocopying some bundles in the most efficient way.

And who the fuck needs a dedicated person to print off their emails. You literally just press file and print. As long as there is paper in the print tray it really is exceptionally easy.

A friend of mine has recently joined a local authority from the private sector. After 2 weeks her manager told her to slow down as she was making the others in the dept look bad. She does about 1-2 hours work a day now and potters around the house with her laptop the rest of the time. About a quarter of her team are generally off sick/stress etc.

My friend was told to stop being so productive as they were making others look bad too. It was a dull job though, and their thinking was that the more they plough through, the quicker the day went.

They also said that talk of ‘statutory sick days’ was rife. If you hadn’t taken at least 10 days off sick in a year, the view was you were a total mug!

Reading stuff like this makes me think no wonder most of the local councils in the U.K. are going bust. No one is doing any work and yet still we keep paying salaries!!

Ive said for years that local government needs a complete overhaul. Don’t get me started on non-performing contacts that go external suppliers of services like Compass and Veolia who are locked in for very long periods- think 7 or 8 years and then do a terrible job because the local authority won’t enforce the contract penalties. Local authorities seem to have form for ‘outsourcing’ services, signing horrendous contracts and then lazing about in their offices or off sick while their local area falls into wrack and ruin.

We get such poor value for money. I don’t know what the answer is but £3 trillion of debt isn’t going away. Someone needs to do something. I’d willing take Elon Musk and his Doge team to rip through local authorities right now, if I could.

Working in customer service in the CS, I don't recognise these tales of shirkers with not much to do. We are swamped! I never worked this hard in the private or charitable sector.

I didn’t mind back in the day when’s civil service salary was clearly substantially lower than a company salary at a similar level

I think the usual argument is that public services won't be able to attract the best candidates if they don't pay well, @TrainGame, and that has merit

Or at least it would have if the stultifying, "can't do" mindset could be changed, and if as a consequence better staff could be attracted and retained

Edited to add, after your last post, that our own council outsourced most of the libraries to an organisation which (predictably) turned out to be just another funding sponge, and even with the use of volunteers it's finished up costing over twice what running the places themselves did
On the bright side though the head of said organisation's the brother of the chair of the committe who drove this, so at least that's something

Agree - we are overloaded at the moment. I am an SEO doing two people’s jobs. Yet we don’t have enough people at HEO or EO level to do the work delivery, and so customers suffer. Instead managers are proposing more SEOs. Plus we’ve had a recruitment freeze for the past year so the team is dwindling as people leave, and I’m having to pick up work that would usually be done by someone two levels below me.

Plus don’t forget the huge pension benefits CS are on too.

Civil Service interviews are such bollocks - never ask about your knowledge or experience, just how you “saw the big picture.”

We need more medics not managers.

I think anything customer facing in the public sector is busy and demanding. It's the Managers who have meetings for meetings that are a complete waste of money

I had an ex bf who worked for DWP. I stayed at his and decided to work from his the next day as it was one of his three wfh days. I kid you not he made one single phone call and wrote one letter. That was his days work!

It’s all rehearsed bollocks. Everyone knows what they’re going to be asked. It’s so contrived!!

• "In addition to the Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA), those on a low income or facing financial hardship may also be eligible for Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, and council tax reductions." Not to mention free prescriptions, dental care, child tax credits.
• Income Support.
• Income-based Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA).
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).