To think Local Government is full of pointless jobs that exist just to justify managers’ roles?

[NimblePoster]

I worked in Local Government for years and while some teams work hard and deliver real benefits to communities, there are also entire roles - and even teams - that serve no real purpose.

Managers accumulate staff because having a bigger team gives them status, justifies higher pay, and probably makes their own jobs feel secure (especially given the mass job cuts in LG over the past two decades). With little oversight, managers keep people on even when their function disappears. I’ve seen whole teams sitting idle, their jobs now pointless, yet still being paid as if they’re essential.

AIBU to think a huge chunk of Local Government is just wasting taxpayer money?

I think the key word here is worked rather than work.

In my experience it is grossly understaffed because of huge cutbacks. So many roles have vanished altogether, and people aren’t replaced when they leave, some departments, like planning, can’t keep staff because the private sector (housing developers, consultants) pay so much more.

Can’t believe some of the comments here. Can only be a journalist.

I see front line teams vastly overworked, and yes people do go off work sick with stress because the reality is that a social worker cannot manage 50 cases on a 40 hour week and actually do what they need to do to protect our most vulnerable people. and they are vilified if something is missed. And then there’s this constant attack against public sector workers which is demoralising and frankly energy sapping.

gold plated pensions don’t exist. Jobs for life don’t exist. These are old concepts but local government hasn’t been like that since the 70’s. I can’t think of anyone within my area of work who does nothing. There will be those that don’t work as hard as others, but that just isn’t the norm.

You’re kidding, aren’t you? Maybe 20 years ago, but local government is on the bones of its arse. There aren’t enough staff to fulfill statutory roles in many cases (adult social care, looked after children, etc. are stretched to breaking point as need continues to increase but funding can’t keep pace) never mind the ‘nice to haves’ like libraries and museums. Staff are departing in their droves and aren’t being replaced. Councils can’t fill the roles they do advertise because they can’t match private sector salaries. Stop dog whistling, OP, and go and do something positive with your life, instead of trying to kick the people who’ll be caring for you in the future.

I’ve worked in the private sector for 15 years, and a public sector role for 8. In my role in the public sector (and I’m sure in others too) you get the same performance reviews as everywhere else, you can get managed out if you are doing poorly, or you’re off sick too much. It’s like anywhere else I’ve worked. The main difference I have noticed is that in the private sector, if you take on extra work and responsibilities in a private sector job, it’s easy to ask for a pay rise or new job title. In the public sector, it just becomes part of your job. It’s hard to get more money or a new title, it just gets absorbed into your role. There isn’t the flexibility I’ve been used to elsewhere but we all just do it anyway because we are bothered about doing a good job.

My husband is a sales manager (not director) and he earns more than the person where I work who fulfils the CEO-type role. The list ain’t great!

I think a lot of perceptions about the public sector are very outdated, like from 50 years ago. Also, a lot of my colleagues work way beyond our allotted hours because we’re very conscious we’re providing a service to the general public.

I would have thought a lot of council tax goes on looking after an ageing population in care homes or at home. That’s expensive. Here’s a link to where my council tax goes https://www.salford.gov.uk/council-tax/where-my-council-tax-goes/

I would really encourage people who like to criticise to try and get a job in the public sector - see how it really is, and make a difference. People where I work are always interested in how we can save money.

I have worked in Local Government for nearly thirty years and this is EXACTLY my experience. Yes there are certainly are teams working hard and really delivering for communities, and there are others with very little to do.

I have had roles where I have had nothing to do or next to nothing to do. The post was a vanity project for the manager. One of the few ways to get status in LG is to have staff. My old Council actually created a performance scale where the more staff you have, the higher your salary. Which just incentivized manager to accumulate or retain posts they did not need.

I was once involved in an investigation of a Manager who was watching films at work. Turned out the function of his team had been taken over by central government, as everyone knew, leaving him and his staff with literally no work. They were social workers, so without clients, they had no purpose. Instead of redeploying then or making them redundant, the Head of Service had just held onto this purposeless team. Perhaps because he was scared for his own job in an upcoming restructuring. So this entire team sat with literally no work for well over a year by the time I was involved.

I am in a new job at a new Council, and there is next to nothing for me to do. I was horrified when the previous post holder gave me the handover as I realised this was another non job. I am really pissed off. I have spent too much of my time at LG in jobs which have no real purpose or under occupied.

This failure to manage managers destroys people’s careers. It’s immoral to the public purse and it’s immoral to staff whose careers and confidence is destroyed. It’s also madness when councils are desperately trying to balance the books that there is this huge inefficiency that no one will talk about. They are all wedded to the narrative that they are all horribly over worked and under resourced. But thats simply not universally true in LG.

LG staff seem to have been particularly resistant to going back to work, despite their partnership focused jobs particularly benefiting from time in office, and I suspect that being under occupied is a factor in this. It’s nicer being under occupied at home

role in the public sector (and I’m sure in others too) you get the same performance reviews as everywhere else

Nope. In my current LG role we have no targets, no goals, no performance reviews and no appraisals.

We did in my last council, but not this one.

And to add, the appraisal system doesn’t address poor managers. A poor manager who gives you nothing to do, will not reveal this on your appraisal. They’ll just pass you on the minimal work they give you.

I’ve never worked at a Council dept. where there was a system which measured managers on how well they manage and utilize staff.

I have worked at a council where HR told a stafff member who wanted to take action against at a manager ‘ don’t even think about it, the managers will stick together, you’ll get no where and it will be the worse for you’.

I do work there, my experience is current.

Fair enough - sorry I wasn’t aiming my comment at you specifically. A lot of people are saying things that don’t reflect my experience of the public sector, who presumably don’t work in the public sector but have incorrect perceptions about it, and it frustrates me. No one I know is sitting there twiddling their thumbs. Genuinely, if people have skills to do a better job with public funds, there are roles out there to do just that.

I work there too and don’t recognise your experiences. Maybe don’t tar us all with the same brush?

Well we get them every year, and we have constant targets to meet. If you’re off sick too much, this gets investigated too. I appreciate it doesn’t happen where you work, and that’s shocking, but it does happen where I work. You have to show what you’ve done, it’s expected.

Now I feel like a chump for this, clearly I need a workplace where I can put my feet up all day.

Honestly you don’t. It’s soul destroying.

They can't use the internet but have nothing to do? What kind of savagery is this? Why not deploy them elsewhere for that time period or just let them stay at home?

When I left the council, my department had more managers than staff technically . All the staff were part time and managers full time.
When I started we had one manager and dozens of staff and we were a great department.
Over the years individuals came in who created roles for themselves managing people and buildings, but in reality doing very very little. My main manager spent all his time trying to work out how to cut more staff so he could get a pay review for running an ‘efficient department’.

At the end I was part time doing the job 3 full time people had done 10 years before and I got nothing but grief for not managing. I was bullied out and they were then shocked about work not getting done.
They have cut those manager roles now but haven’t repopulated the actual staff still. It’s a shitshow.

Well we get them every year, and we have constant targets to meet. If you’re off sick too much, this gets investigated too. I appreciate it doesn’t happen where you work, and that’s shocking, but it does happen where I work. You have to show what you’ve done, it’s expected

pretty much the only thing these threads are showing me is that (as with every place of employment) councils where local or county are all different

we have targets, appraisals and disciplinary procedures, I have to complete a timesheet which shows exactly what I’ve done that day and we are losing staff and having a recruitment freeze.

generalisatIons help nobody

Yeah 😀

someone on another thread was talking about team leaders earning 80k

I need to know where these jobs are so i can tell my team leader 😀

or maybe not….she’s really good and i wouldn’t want to lose her 🧐

I'd be very interested to hear about what directorate you work in and what sort of role you do.

I mean, we can all claim experience of just about anything on an anonymous chat forum.

I have worked in a role that straddles NHS, education and social care and everyone is on heir knees. Working vast numbers of unpaid extra hours, firefighting, ever decreasing resources and ever increasing demands.

In my area the libraries have been closed, waiting lists are horrendous, housing lists run into years and years, there are no special school places. Every service I have contact with is totally overstretched.

In a previous life I was a sales manager with a bank for 5 years, I have also been a teacher before moving into LA roles. It's not as though I have nothing to compare it to.

It's no good people coming on here and saying that this must be the case because their auntie's neighbour's bear friend worked for the council in the 80s and everyone was lazy. That is many generations ago and nothing like today.

Source? Like actual real source, not the Daily Mail.

Social care are stretched beyond belief and there is a severe lack of funding but I think other departments could do with looking at. Waste needs cutting back to channel funding into social care imo.

Agree, I have clearly been doing the public sector wrong for the last 22 years...

But LAs have to be careful that in dismantling the systems that sit around social care they’re not inadvertently putting more pressure on the service. Eg - an absolute shit and understaffed HR department causes massive problems when needing to recruit social care staff and results in more pressure on social care managers and staff that then take them away from the core of their job, protecting vulnerable people. A functioning HR department supports social care to recruit, induct, train and manage social care staff. There has to be a balance because social doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Another example is leisure services, parks maintenance etc - lack of investment in those increases social isolation and anti-social behaviour and feeds the cycles that result in people needing social care intervention. LAs are an entire ecosystem (together with local health, businesses, schools etc) that needs to be finely balanced.

Quite.

Obviously none of us can take for every department of every local authority, but my team work with colleagues in bordering LAs fairly regularly, and know for a fact that all of those LAs are stretched to the limit and trying to balance caseloads that are ridiculous.
I'd love to know where this LA is StillSlowly works for as it is clearly the exception to the rule. Any news source will tell you Councils across the Country are either technically bankrupt or close to bankruptcy. None of those LAs are employing staff to twiddle their thumbs.

I don’t know enough about local gov to comment, but having worked in central gov I can well imagine you’re right. In my own experience, it didn’t seem to be due to individuals’ work ethic or ability for the most part but to culture and deeply-embedded expectations, standards and ways of working. Unfortunately the only known cure, and I think the only thing that has ever really worked - and even that not in all cases - is to get the consultants in to get the wind up ‘em. AKA even more £bn of public money to the private sector - you know, the ones that also happen to own and run the services that the same inefficient govt contract out to.