Page 21 | Civil Service internship. Only children of the "working class"

Quirkswork · 2025-08-01T10:02:34+00:00

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.*

NaicePeachJoker · 01/08/2025 19:16

cardibach · 01/08/2025 19:11

Are you serious? They are all quantifiable.
Im out. You don’t want a discussion you just want to throw out questions to deflect.

Show quote history

The question has been the same throughout, how do you objectively grade class. You said wealth and I asked what are the criteria of wealth to be working class or middle class?
I’m not surprised you can’t answer, it’s because class is subjective and utterly based on people’s biases. You’re not part of some oppressed hard done by class of people, it’s just people who didn’t do well at school and struggled to progress at work.

Baital · 01/08/2025 19:17

Bilbo63 · 01/08/2025 19:14

You don’t actually need any qualifications for entry level CS jobs - with the exception of fast track. They blind recruit - they assess your values and behaviours. You do not mention your education or previous roles in your statement.

Show quote history

Which, of course, if you are from the 'right' background you know what to say.

It's not necessarily the truth, but it is what you put on an application.

If you have the 'right' guidance to understand what you should write/ say

cardibach · 01/08/2025 19:17

dynamiccactus · 01/08/2025 17:08

Those sorts of schemes are great - was that Sutton Trust? A few people work at my employer who came through the Sutton Trust and of course the NCS is open to everyone.

Those are exactly the sort of schemes we SHOULD support. They do not exclude, they enrich.

This is excluding.

Show quote history

Sutton Trust stuff is very often for young people who come from families where nobody has been to university. I agree they are brilliant. I’m glad you do too.

August3r · 01/08/2025 19:18

Xenia · 01/08/2025 19:15

The civil service is full of left wing people and the pay can be pretty low so I suggest people avoid it anyway for their careers if they can.
It is possible the sceme might breach the Equality Act 2010 I suppose if the working class is more likely to be people of a certain kind eg boys or non whites or whites or whatever. I hope the state has thought it through.

Why do we have so many civil service jobs anyway?

Constantlurker112 · 01/08/2025 19:18

Quirkswork · 01/08/2025 11:18

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.

Show quote history

'Would be among' not the only jobs which would be recognised.

As others have said the point of the summer internship programmes is to help ensure that the civil service is as diverse as the people in the country it serves. I genuinely can't see how this is something to be angry about. The civil service does not require people to have had an internship to get a job. Roles at all sorts of grades are openly recruited.

solando · 01/08/2025 19:19

They have left toolmaker off that list

Bilbo63 · 01/08/2025 19:19

Xenia · 01/08/2025 19:15

The civil service is full of left wing people and the pay can be pretty low so I suggest people avoid it anyway for their careers if they can.
It is possible the sceme might breach the Equality Act 2010 I suppose if the working class is more likely to be people of a certain kind eg boys or non whites or whites or whatever. I hope the state has thought it through.

The CS is politically impartial. Not allowed to discuss politics at work. We just have to implement policy. It is not particularly well paid though. You can earn more in the private sector.

August3r · 01/08/2025 19:20

cardibach · 01/08/2025 19:17

Sutton Trust stuff is very often for young people who come from families where nobody has been to university. I agree they are brilliant. I’m glad you do too.

Show quote history

Well as fewer and fewer young people are going to uni as only the poorest with full loans or the rich can afford to go Sutton needs to update and venture out into the real world. It has changed- massively!

Lucyccfc68 · 01/08/2025 19:21

August3r · 01/08/2025 18:31

But this isn’t doing that. Loads of kids of tradespeople in our local grammar, and other jobs on the list. We have lots of immigrants in our area who are highly represented in grammars and many work in the care sector x 2 . It’s a good family income which funds trips back home and access to additional cultures. Absolutely nothing against that but please don’t tell me the children
of brick layers and carers aren’t in grammar schools and are automatically underprivileged, they’re not.

Show quote history

It’s still social mobility, just for a different group. There has to be some sort of target group and obviously the civil service, through their own research, has found that they don’t attract many applications from people who’s parents are not in a ‘professional’ role.

Despite my expertise in early careers/apprenticeships/ graduates etc. my DS qualified for a social mobility programme with a University. This was on the basis on neither of his parents (myself included) not having a degree.

Each social mobility programme will have its own unique criteria, based on the specific needs of that organisation. None of this stops people outside of that criteria from gaining employment.

NeedAnyHelpWithThatPaperBag · 01/08/2025 19:21

Without initiatives like this it's just stalemate.

cardibach · 01/08/2025 19:22

Looploop · 01/08/2025 17:54

But the opportunities are only for certain kids. That is discrimination. If it was internships only for males, for example, you would see it was wrong.

Show quote history

Not if men were underrepresented in the thing and it would be a benefit to society if more of them did it I wouldn’t.

Bilbo63 · 01/08/2025 19:23

Baital · 01/08/2025 19:17

Which, of course, if you are from the 'right' background you know what to say.

It's not necessarily the truth, but it is what you put on an application.

If you have the 'right' guidance to understand what you should write/ say

Show quote history

It really is not easy and yes, knowing the system helps. There are forums dedicated to getting a foot through the door. Once in, progression is not as easy as people think either.

NaicePeachJoker · 01/08/2025 19:23

solando · 01/08/2025 19:19

They have left toolmaker off that list

Ha ha

Looploop · 01/08/2025 19:24

How is it different from segregation?

August3r · 01/08/2025 19:24

Lucyccfc68 · 01/08/2025 19:21

It’s still social mobility, just for a different group. There has to be some sort of target group and obviously the civil service, through their own research, has found that they don’t attract many applications from people who’s parents are not in a ‘professional’ role.

Despite my expertise in early careers/apprenticeships/ graduates etc. my DS qualified for a social mobility programme with a University. This was on the basis on neither of his parents (myself included) not having a degree.

Each social mobility programme will have its own unique criteria, based on the specific needs of that organisation. None of this stops people outside of that criteria from gaining employment.

Show quote history

But going by the chart in the bbc article the middle socio economic group is the most under represented in the CS so there is no social mobility. That group will be even lower and the massively over represented privately educated stays at 59%.

nearlylovemyusername · 01/08/2025 19:25

Lucyccfc68 · 01/08/2025 18:22

It’s social mobility, not social engineering.

I work in a role (private sector - construction, engineering) where I do a lot of work to attract young talent to our degree apprenticeship and graduate programmes. The roles are absolutely open to everyone, however before I arrived, every single cohort each year was full of kids whose parents work for us, those who went to private school or had parents in professional roles. They were also mainly white, males. (Nothing wrong with white, males btw, my son is one).

The recruitment process was really narrow and actually seemed to exclude anyone who wasn’t in one of the groups above. So , I started a programme of Outreach, which meant choosing specific schools to partner with. They were generally schools with a high number of pupils on free school meals, girls schools or schools with a very diverse group of young people. I arranged lots of different events for the students to show them the types of opportunities that are available in our industry. Things like careers events, tours, meet current apprentices and work experience. I actively excluded fee paying and grammar schools. The reason why ……….. Their parents, on the whole, will have a wider network to call upon to enable their children to access things like this and they are less likely to struggle to obtain a decent job, apprenticeship or graduate role.

All of this does not mean that we now only employ from the schools we target. We still take a larger percentage of those young people who come from what I would say is a bit more of a privileged background. However, we now have young people getting opportunities that they may never have known about. They are just as competent and hard working.

I remember an old HR Director at another company, who was a qualified solicitor , with both children in private school. She was moaning one day that her DS couldn’t access a particular summer school that a large law firm was offering, as she went to a private school. She moaned that her DS could miss out on valuable experience for when it came to applying for a law apprenticeship. I did remind her, that one of her best friends was a judge and the other a barrister and she had lots of contacts with law firms. She had a huge amount of privilege with her contacts and basically picked up the phone to secure her daughter a summer placement with a ‘mates’ law firm. Does a cleaner, receptionist or bin man have that kind of network - probably not, so their children don’t have as many opportunities.

Social mobility does not exclude the privileged kids or those who have professional parents or went to private school from getting a good job and having a fantastic future. It just gives those from a less privileged background a few opportunities.

Insane.

So you do discriminate against certain group of youngsters. You dislike though when other people discriminate against the group you're trying to prioritise?

You dislike when people use their connections to get privileged access for their children but this is exactly what you suggested your HR Director should do?

Cognitive dissonance?

This absolutely is social engineering. And very stupid one.

Constantlurker112 · 01/08/2025 19:26

Quirkswork · 01/08/2025 11:33

If you are increasing the pool, yes. But you aren't. You are increasing the pool for one group while decreasing the pool at the expense of another group of kids. A very large group of kids. How are they supposed to get civil service work experience or an internship? By osmosis?

Show quote history

You do not need civil service work experience or an internship to get a job in the civil service. Lots of roles are advertised for anyone to apply for.

lljkk · 01/08/2025 19:27

@Quirkswork Quirkswork, can you please define "social engineering" as you understand it? the term is mostly used in online links to describe a kind of cyber attack, not as a synonym for woke or affirmative action or whatever SE means to you. Since you use the term, you must be able to define what it is and isn't. I need some explanation that is totally missing online.

SharpTraybake · 01/08/2025 19:28

Quirkswork · 01/08/2025 11:58

Why disgusting? To want every child to be treated as an individual? What's wrong with that?

Show quote history

But how could you possibly assess every child's living situation individually? It's not feasible, and I think you know that. Even the anonymity measures mentioned upthread aren't foolproof- there have been countless studies done on unconscious bias. We make assumptions about a person just based on the language they use in their application, never mind their address, previous experience etc.

Your argument seems to be that we shouldn't offer anybody a helping hand because we can't feasibly assess everybody individually, but without 'social engineering' there is no social mobility. It's a cold, hard fact that working class can't access opportunities like this as easily as middle/upper class kids, and we need to do something about that.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's a start.

Looploop · 01/08/2025 19:29

What about judging applicants for any role according to who shows the most aptitude due to qualifications and skills? Not according to contacts or accent or whether their father was a toolmaker or even if they know who their father was. Radical, I know, but it could work.

Baital · 01/08/2025 19:33

Looploop · 01/08/2025 19:29

What about judging applicants for any role according to who shows the most aptitude due to qualifications and skills? Not according to contacts or accent or whether their father was a toolmaker or even if they know who their father was. Radical, I know, but it could work.

Because qualifications and skills do not define 'aptitude', they benefit those whose circumstances allow them to acquire qualifications and skills.

Edited for spelling mistakes

Looploop · 01/08/2025 19:35

Baital · 01/08/2025 19:33

Because qualifications and skills do not define 'aptitude', they benefit those whose circumstances allow them to acquire qualifications and skills.

Edited for spelling mistakes

Edited

Show quote history

But shouldn’t recruitment be about getting the best person to carry out the job? A simple idea.

cardibach · 01/08/2025 19:37

NaicePeachJoker · 01/08/2025 18:24

The policy is deciding who can apply on the basis of what their parents did as an occupation when they were 14. It’s pretty hard to argue that this is an intelligent way to field the best candidates.

It’s another nail in Labours coffin.

Edited

Show quote history

Who can apply for one small internship scheme, yes. The best candidates are t(n selected at interview for actual jobs. Some of them may be these young people who wouldn’t otherwise have applied. Or they may not.

nearlylovemyusername · 01/08/2025 19:39

OP, whilst I share your concern, I'd just ... leave them to it?

Why would ambitious intelligent well educated youngster from privileged background want to go to CS? I remember public outrage when Sue Gray wanted pay about £160k - yes, it is a big salary in context of UK mean salary, but you can get this in private sector in many large corporates in your early thirties doing much more exciting things.

Looploop · 01/08/2025 19:40

@nearlylovemyusername can you share the secret of how to get into those private sector roles?