Civil Service internship. Only children of the "working class"

[Quirkswork]

If your child is coming up for 14 and interested in a career in the Civil Service and you have a job in a profession or that means you pay a lot of tax, I suggest you down tools now.

As reported in the Telegraph,

Civil Service internships will only be offered to students from lower income families in a bid to make Whitehall more working class, ministers have announced.

Only young people from “lower socio-economic backgrounds” will be able to apply to Whitehall’s internship programme, the Cabinet Office has said.

A student will be judged eligible depending on what jobs their parents did when they were 14. Students with parents who are receptionists, electricians, plumbers, butchers or van drivers would be among those eligible for the programme.

It’s a short summer internship, not a job offer. For a look into the type of role they may have little experience with, compared to middle class families. Sounds a good thing to me.

It is the same with many apprenticeship/internships and university summer schools.

So you'd swap all the benefits of a professional career, the additional wealth and privilege you enjoy and can hand to your children for no other reason than they were lucky to be born into advanrage, for one measly opportunity on offer to less fortunate young people, would you? Seriously, can't lower income people have anything without some grabby better off person whinging about it?

I suspect this is to ultimately encourage more applicants from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Often organisations struggle to make their work forces more representative of the broader population due to the make up of the applicants (you can't hire them if they don't apply) so this is probably a way to get people through the door, to some extent.

Their internships have long been aimed at increasing diversity and providing opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds within cs.

Children of the working class that don't do the jobs that are on the list and the children of the middle class (whatever that is) won't be able to look into the type of role they may have little experience with.

Because of their parent's job when they were 14.

I think it's a great idea to level the playing field. We need more diversity in our civil services so should be encouraging young people from a range of backgrounds to get experience and consider applying for these jobs.

You're being completely unreasonable.

Careers in the Civil Service are still open to anyone with suitable qualifications and who get through the intense interview/recruitment process. The odds are currently heavily weighted against applicants from a lower economic background. This is a way of offering short term summer internships to people who would really benefit from them.

Why wouldn't any child benefit from them?

I suppose it might make the Civil Service a bit less left wing. Given that the "working class" are deserting Labour.

You need to do some research OP, then you might understand. You're clearly not reading the responses on here.

It's an internship, not a job. Children from those backgrounds do not have the social and cultural capital enjoyed by those whose parents are from the professional classes. This doesn't level the playing field, but it goes some way to giving those children an idea of what a professional career might entail.

I support this. Measures you increase representation from the underrepresented should be applauded. Britain’s class system is an abomination.

The fact that senior corporate positions, senior media positions, the student body of top universities and government is STILL dominated by the privately educated despite the privately educated only being 7% of the population is wild to me.

This helps but lets face it most internships will still go to those with parental connections.

The list isn’t exhaustive and the middle class are already well represented in the civil service. This is about expanding the reach to those not well represented, an entirely good thing.

I am reading them and completely disagree with them, Im afraid. I don't think social engineering is a good thing at all. I'd quite like competent civil servants though.

I'm always curious as to how they prevent people lying on these forms ?

It's a summer school.

Oxbridge do them as well OP!

I'd quite like competent civil servants though.

Oh dear …

It's just a dream...

In which case you will surely be in favour of increasing the pool of potentially excellent candidates for CS positions, which is what schemes like this are trying to do.

Calm down it's just an internship, ie a temporary post on the lowest paid band doing a few weeks finding out what work is like in the civil service. For children whose parents do manual labour or factory work the idea of applying for a job in the Ministry of Justice or Cabinet Office might seem impossible to even imagine you could fit in and build a career there. An internship opens the door and lets them see it's just a fancy name for a public sector office, and they can listen in to meetings and observe and find out if it could be for them. Whereas for kids whose parents already do similar work it's not necessary, they can just apply directly without a worry. The job application process and graduate schemes aren't changing.

Quite right. Keep the plebs in their place. Inconceivable that one of them might be a competent civil servant.

I grew up in very disadvantaged circumstances. A 6 month contract in the civil service is what got me out of poverty in my early 20's and I believe has helped me stay in employment ever since. It was an amazing starting point and gave me confidence in myself. My children wouldn't qualify for this due to my job now but I think they will be far better prepared for entering the workforce having not had to deal with being below the breadline their entire childhoods and seeing their mother in stable employment. I think it's a brilliant idea.

(I was a competent civil servant I promise!)

Because many children from middle class backgrounds always seem to know someone, family member, family friend, acquaintance etc who can offer them a step up. Hence why finding work experience in Y10 can be a thankless pointless exercise if you don’t have the contacts. Ex partner said most of the kids they got were from our local private school primarily because the Boss went there back in the day.

Jobs for young people are getting harder and harder to come by for young people. If you start cutting off large groups of kids for prospective employment and from work experience just because of what their parents did when you were 14 then this will stifle aspiration in a lot of young people. Just because your parent didn't tick the box. Even if your life has been shit.

Disagree I'm afraid. Another thing to add to the list of terrible Labour policies.