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?

It’s impossible to generalise judging by the experiences recounted in this thread. In my experience working with councils, they are often run quite differently and I am sure there is a lot of variation between areas too.

Some departments are massively stretched, often statutory services such as social care. Others are working on non-statutory stuff that the private sector would do a better job with, with little to no accountability. I think it’s immoral to not sack the useless ones, when people are going without food or heating in order to afford their council tax.

Why can't public sectors be multi-skilled?
It seems silly to have people sat around in offices when there are potholes all over the roads and bins aren't being emptied in Birmingham.

This wouldn't be allowed in any private sector business, if there is work to be done, it gets done.

Oona

i used to work in retail, and im telling you right now that if we were short staffed in the shop there is no way anyone from an office shop would be sent to help out

when dhs firm is short of auditors they don’t send someone from the tax team to help

so no…it doesn’t happen in the private sector,

I'm not sure this is true. Our local authority is one continuous carousel of Management of Change processes tearing through department after department, before starting all over again. Adult Social Care, Children's Services and Education are bled dry ‐teams are operating on skeleton staff who are exhausted and unable to ever catch up on their workload. Schools whose pupil numbers are dropping are closing.

BiL worked as a hired consultant, driving these processes in local authorities up and down the country until ten years ago, essentially making thousands of people redundant. He'd go in with a matrix protocol for rolling out cost-cutting measures and restructuring programmes across a council and produce a much leaner, supposedly more cost-effective 'version 2' at the other end. He doesn't think there's much left to 'trim' now without seriously impacting the efficient running of essential services.

Council often spend £££ on consultants to tell them how to improve. They are running so lean now that there is no improvement efficiences to be made so the deckchairs which are fading and sunburnt get rearranged. Meanwhile trolleys full of cash get stuffed into the NHS.

So you want social workers and planning officers with no construction training going round fixing potholes.

This is too fucking ridiculous to come with a reply.

Its ludicrous

I was going to post something but at the end of another long week of doing my very stressful, degrading and demoralising 'pointless' local government job I just don't have the energy. What's most depressing is the amount of posters who seem to agree with the OP.

Never mind. At least I've got the next two days to pretend my job isn't shit and people don't think I'm an imbecile for doing it, before the hamster wheel starts again on Monday.

Why anybody in local government does what they do I've no idea. We must be gluttons for punishment.