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 “people like Angela Rayner”. That’s the criteria.

Plumbers/sparkies often earn more than professionals. If they're doing commercial stuff on a self employed basis £100k is defo possible.

You'd be mad to work for the civil service if you had a parent that could pass on a trade/get you into their business.

Two train drivers would earn a good amount, enough for private education.

The sad reality is the biggest judge of how successful a kid is going to be is not their grades or academic achievements- its what their parents did when they were 14.

This policy wants to target kids from low socio- economic backgrounds because they are very bright, but it doesn't necessarily translate into them achieving top A-levels or top universities.

Out of interest, why does this anger you so much? What do you do for a living that excludes your kids from applying?

Right so the kids of said shop keeper who have lovely holidays abroad every year and the grammar educated children of the bricklayer who will get a massive footing on the housing ladder don’t know how to do well at selection and are somehow worse off than the kids of a lower paid it worker or nurse who go camping in Cornwall and can’t go to uni because their parents can’t top up uni loans. Bit stereotypical, rude and ridiculous don’t you think.

What's sad? Taking a sabbatical so your kids get free lunch or lying about your parents job?

I think paying £15 a week for a an utterly mediocre meal so you can virtue signal how "honest " you are is sad.

As for your parents job when you were 14, how does this organisation make sure you aren't lying? My mother was just my mother and I don't even remember what my father's job was when I was 14 I'd have to ask him which wouldn't be much use if I'd gone "non contact" like half of tik-tok have, such is the trend nowadays. Seriously how would you go about proving your parents job?

Can you even read or do I need to say it for you really slowly?

I wrote:
‘All of this does not mean that we now only employ from the schools we target’

The jobs I offered were still open to ‘everyone’. There was no discrimination of any group when it came to applying for and being offered a role.

I didn’t ‘suggest or tell’ the HR director used her contacts - I reminded her that she was in a privileged position that she could use her contacts, that other people don’t have.

It’s a scheme that was open to all children and now it’s only open to children who parents had specific jobs. What sort of person wouldn’t be angry about a government doing this?

@Looploop

Its for people like Angela Rayner

And there we have it

I recently ran a career's day in a local school. It was for children who hadn't managed to arrange work experience. Many of the children were bright, under confident and had no connections. My own child had work experience because I filled in the application form with them on the last day for submission when they hadn't independently got round to it, and I knew the right things to say. I fully support this policy as I realized how much privilege my kids have from an engaged parent, who knows what a good application form looks like. As other posters have said it's not every single route into the civil service, but hopefully it helps people know somebody who has worked there or done a placement there and therefore they can imagine being there themselves

Maybe ones who have only worked as cleaners, waiters, dinnerladies, van drivers and the like because they didn't have the qualifications and are both proud of their children for getting as far as university and delighted that there's something designed to encourage them to consider a career in the Civil Service as they always thought that it was full of wealthy white people in fancy suits who met at Oxford?

Angela Raynor !!!!! who has taken the publics choice away on planning applications

I hope it’s not for people like her if that’s her idea of democracy …..ie taking it away

Labour is full of these ill thought out policies. Time for a serious think re voting next time

Absolutely , can’t believe I voted for them, foolishly thinking they cared about the squeezed middle.

It’s not the kids fault what job their parent did or didn’t do when they were 14. It’s grossly unfair. And what about the kids who with absent fathers for example? Do they get excluded from the scheme? I’m sure this is the thin edge of the wedge and it will be rolled out to loads of other schemes. Wonder what they will think up next? Ps my dad was a builder so it’s not exactly as if I’m personally invested in this.

I mean that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll only get working class kids. When I was 14 my parents were an electrician and a SAHM. But my dads a millionaire…

I mean that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll only get working class kids. When I was 14 my parents were an electrician and a SAHM. But my dads a millionaire…

It's an internship. Not a career.

And it's not open to all children if anyone can apply. The reality is that the kids with the 'best' applications will be the ones whose professional parents have written the application for them- or at least looked it over.

The kids from poor backgrounds won't even get a look in. Their applications will get drowned out with all the ones with D of E and gap years as ski instructors.

And I know from years of experience that having a shiny degree from Oxbridge does not always translate into stellar performance in the workplace. Just as some of the highest performers have had mediocre degrees from mediocre unis.

I bet they will end up applying it to other schemes. I think it’s just a cynical scheme for them to appeal to the working classes - especially so now that Jeremy Corbyn is setting up a new political party.

designed to encourage them to consider a career in the Civil Service
It’s designed to encourage graduates into the civil service, it’s now been changed to exclude graduates whose parents didn’t do certain jobs. There nothing particular about driving a van or being a dinner lady that makes you spiteful towards other people’s children.

wealthy white people
Is the mask slipping a bit? It’s really all
it ever comes down to with the few remaining Labour supporters .

And @Alertscroller Except it's not lower income people is it? My mum was a nurse, single parent and we lived on a council estate. This scheme would be closed to us however, because according to them she's high-class. Despite not even having a-levels herself (trained as a nurse before degrees were a requirement, and you got paid).

A plumber or a train driver earns a shit tonne.

If you are middle class, the chances of your child missing out on a job because someone upper class whose parents had the right contacts or they've been to the right school got one over them are far higher than someone working class getting one over them because they went on this sort of internship quite frankly. There is plenty of "social engineering" going on, just at the other end to the one you are focusing on!

Word salad aside, was it or was it not open to every graduate?

I appreciate your point but is it not equally wrong to exclude a young person because they happened to be born into the middle class?

So he was a businessman / managing director of his own firm?

Which would exclude you from this initiative.

That's why the 14 year age marker is there and is effective. He started as a electrician but was upwardly mobile.

If it was from birth you'd be entitled to join and it would be an ineffective marker.

Are you always so obtuse?