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.

Experienced brick layers can earn an up to £40 and &50k, with a second income that’s a big household income.

Anyone could apply to the CS, obviously you need some level of education and then there was a selection process and an interview, you had to be pretty good to get in. Internships, who you know, but no pay so who wanted or could afford it?

Well you still have a better idea how to help your child through uni than my parents did, who worked in a factory and never got any formal qualification's. Even having parents who support education, able to help with homework. They all make a massive difference. My DC have benefitted hugely from that, and attending an ousted outstanding primary and secondary in a london suburb. Quite the opposite of my education and parental involvement

CS is open to everyone. Few formal qualification's needed. Apart from grad scheme

The BBC article says poor families, that's not a poorer family

Well no we can’t help them through uni, they are miles away and we can barely afford the top ups we have to do. We are no help, kids don’t always helpfully do the degrees their parents did. My kids have disabilities so struggle with that on top . Lots of friends have told their dc they can’t go to uni.

I meant help with the process of applying etc. Not help financially.

I know. I said exactly that in a previous post. Parental occupation is the strongsst indicator.

My point about Oxbridge degrees is that it's predominantly rich, posh kids. Its not always about being the brightest. So many working class kids don't get near it.

I actually think if a working class kid makes it to Oxbridge, then they probably dont need this internship as they've acquired the status of an Oxbridge degree and are probably used to mixing with their posh cohort and holding their own. ( but I may be wrong!)

I think this would be a good internship for people who went to a local university which isn't seen as prestigious. But was chosen because it was close to home etc.

Internships, who you know, but no pay so who wanted or could afford it?

They are paid and open to anyone to apply.

Apologies for not checking in. Some interesting and thoughtful views on both sides of the argument. I read those that aren't rude or abusive towards me and those which don't make assumptions about me or try and relate this to me personally (as I've already said , my kids aren't interested in this. It's not personal). I've disregarded the rest as I think people should be able to make an argument on the merits and use their self control to resist being nasty to anyone who doesn't agree with them.

Also, anyone writing a post that says "People like the OP..." as if they know me are just being silly. (unless they do know me, obviously).

What I've learned from this thread (which may be different from what other people have learned, but I'm OK with that ) is that there definitely needs to be a way of helping poorer children into the civil service. I understand that. But that this is not the right way of doing it (although I get that its just a single internship) . It's excluding diversity of talent that we desperately need as a country. It's also penalising parents who may have been born poor but managed to climb the ladder by their own efforts. Kids of parents not on the list might not bother to apply to the civil service as they aren't being encouraged. Kids whose parents are on the list might avoid applying seeing it as a condescending pity list drawn up by a Labour party under threat from Reform. The law of unintended consequences is likely to apply. An awful lot of applicants might end up being Reform voters looking at the polls. Which may make the civil service easier for Reform to deal with I suppose.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I'm hoping no one calls me a racist troll again because of them. Fingers crossed.

No it says it will be judging by parental jobs at 14.

The summer internship programme is for the fast stream for which you need a degree. You need to be in the final two years of a degree in order to apply for the internship.

People’s circumstances change. My parents weren’t exactly well off and would definitely have been classed as working class when I was 14. By the time I was in my 20s they had done very well for themselves financially, driving nice cars, holidays in places like the Maldives etc. This is a silly ill-thought out idea and it isn’t fair.

At the start it does say poorer families

The government will restrict civil service internships to students from poorer families as part of a drive from ministers to make Whitehall more working class.

But it’s referring to when you were a child, not what your parents did when you were in your 20’s and 30’s. It is looking at what kind of childhood you had, whether that was a working class household. That’s established by the boxes you tick. For me it was factory workers for my parents, totally unskilled and education level was no formal qualifications for either parent.

The SIP website says “you must be from a lower socio-economic background”

https://www.civil-service-careers.gov.uk/fast-stream/fs-summer-internship-programme/

Exactly. And this is especially scary that this is discrimination at a government level.

parental occupation is the strongest predictor for all students including Oxbridge graduates.

I WAS the working class kid who went to Oxbridge (first in family to get any academic qualifications) and this sort of internship was exactly what I needed. You are not gifted a network in the way you think. The network and the know how, the soft skills and the informal ways in come from family and the school attended. This is the whole reason this sort of scheme is needed.

You're making a very good point OP.

Kids who might be interested in CS but have parents in "wrong" jobs (God forbid GP or consultant parents?) will be discouraged for life. Why would I want to apply to a job when I'm twenty if they didn't even want to interview me when I'm 14?
This leaves us with a very interesting pool of CS in future.

Slow clap Labour.

Heard an interesting thing in the radio today that said the civil service seriously needs a more diverse workforce but while this internship is fine, it won't achieve it.

They suggested reducing pension to up the pay as people can't afford to work in the civil service unless they have family money as the low wage makes saving for a mortgage impossible and this was more of a block.

I agree, it's a very small start at perhaps a meritocracy.The reality in the UK is that the senior positions will still be given to majority white, MC probably men.

We need diversity in the senior posts.

Very few people, regardless of graduate status, have magic networks that will get them work experience and employment.

And this is what socio economic is referring to- job type. It’s ludicrous.

National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC) is a system used to classify individuals and households in the UK based on their socioeconomic position. It's primarily based on occupation and aims to provide a consistent way to analyze social and economic inequalities. NS-SEC is a nested classification, meaning it can be used in different levels of detail, from a broad three-class version to a more detailed fourteen-category version.

Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Purpose:
NS-SEC is used for various analyses, including understanding social mobility, health inequalities, and labor market dynamics.

Key Criteria:
It's largely based on occupation, employment status (employee or self-employed), and supervisory status.

Versions:
It can be used in different versions (8-class, 5-class, and 3-class) depending on the level of detail required for the analysis. The 3-class version is the only one intended to represent a hierarchy.

Relationship to Social Class:
While not directly equivalent to traditional social class, NS-SEC is often used in conjunction with or as a proxy for social class in various studies.

Example:
In a simplified three-class version, it might categorize people into: (1) higher managerial and professional, (2) intermediate occupations, and (3) lower supervisory, technical, and routine occupations.

The majority of the senior positions absolutely should be white - we are a majority white country still by quite some way.

Plus if you are serious about recruiting the worst performing group in society then they are white men (working class).

It’s a growing trend.

I recall the head of recruitment for the armed forces resigning because she was forced to not employ any white males.