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.

If you think what your parents jobs are don't have an impact on almost every job and college offer you get then you are incredibly naive. It's just not usually explicitly advertised.

Oxbridge Is incredibly competitive to get into and once there incredibly intensive. You display a considerable prejudice to refer to Oxbridge students as ‘twits’

Thank you for relaying this.

When I heard this on the radio this morning, I wondered how long it would take for an outraged post to appear.

I despair over people like OP.

Ridiculous and woefully antiquated comment.

Nobody’s stopping the “disadvantaged” from applying for anything. But they are stopping those young people whose parents are “middle class” (whatever that is) and paying a lot of taxes towards civil service wages. Isn’t that discrimination?

FWIW I remember looking into some Foreign Office internships with my son when he was at that age and they were strictly ethnic minorities only - so this isn’t new. It is annoying though!

I think it's very disappointing that people like the OP don't recognise the innate privilege that middle class kids - including my own - are born into.

I think it's more than disappointing that people like the OP resent any initiative that might try to level the playing field for those who have been born into disadvantage.

Yes it’s absurd restricting access to people based on what their parents earned when they were 14, how can it not be? It’s totally bonkers. Same as restricting employment opportunities based on skin colour, age, religion, sexual orientation is absurd. I’d go so far as suggesting we introduce some sort of equal opportunity employment laws in the UK.

Meh, I can’t get offended by this, however hard I try.

I once created a volunteering programme, to mentor children from a low social and economic background into education.

Both these schemes are beneficial….

Probably only those with not especially bright/ personable DC are nervous of these initiatives.

@Looploop there was a study done a few years ago showing that when students from a BME background had the opportunity of an internship with the CS, their success rate at interview when applying for CS jobs was nearly as good as those from white applicants without the internship opportunity.

There is no discrimination going on in a scheme like this

My friends dad owned a multimillion pound company, mine was a disabled benefit claimant, he organised many internships for her with colleagues over the years to look into different businesses. Who do you think was organising internships for me? It's not ok for the government to redress that balance?

OP keeps saying they are against social engineering.
What do think it is when a minority population ( privately educated) get the majority of government roles? Do you not think THAT is social engineering? Or is it only bad when it goes one way?

Yabu

You can’t moan about representation and then be against something that could improve it.

Do you think that we’d be where we are if there wasn’t social engineering like laws prohibiting sexual or racial discrimination? Big changes like women getting the vote happened because it was forced. If women patiently waited for men to step aside and grant them the vote, it might never have happened.

The details of “what constitutes working class” might have some people who miss out on a technicality because their parent’s occupation when they were 14 doesn’t necessarily mean that they were well paid eg parent could have been an apprentice.

This policy is about an 8 week summer internship, not ending the other paths of entering the CS. They are trying to teach kids who may not even have heard of the CS rather than the kids of sharp elbowed parents who have other ways of getting experience and work. I will be happy to bet that in 20 years time, the CS will still be dominated by those who aren’t working class and were able to research and get support by entering by some other means. Once the government changes again, this could easily be reversed to appeal to middle class voters who think that their children are discriminated against when their kids aren’t even interested in the CS in the first place.

So you mean you want communism? People keep saying ‘level the playing field’ as if excluding groups someone magically does that rather than the opposite. I can only presume by level the playing field you mean make everyone the same throughout life - ie communism.

A level playing field is not achieved by excluding people, it is by removing barriers. A barrier being travel and accommodation and advertising opportunities in smaller local universities.

I'm in favour of this sort of thing on the whole. Yes it may tilt the odds of eventually getting a civil service job slightly back in favour of kids from a poorer background, but given the odds are so much against them now I'm fine with that. I should declare an interest though - I did face this problem myself when I was trying to become a lawyer. All the internships at big firms seemed to be hoovered up by the rah-rah, winter-on-the-slopes, daddy's-a-partner-in-the-city types, and later on all the training contracts were too. A pleb like me had to start lower down the chain and eventually rise up above the hordes of mediocre-but-well-connected lawyers that dominated the industry back then. It is better now thanks in part to initiatives like this.

I think it’s so important to show kids who might have had limited exposure to things like professional jobs and university (and more MC activities like travel.theatre etc) what’s out there. Growing up my mum worked in care home and some packing work at home, my Dad was a lorry driver. I had no idea what jobs were available to earn more, when I got up university? I didn’t even know how to order a meal in a restaurant.

This is a great thing IMO and needs to be pretty standard.

Evidence?

What an utter load of misinformed bollocks.

What happens if the parent’s aren’t together but one (not the resident parent) is in a high flying position and the other is minimum wage (this is my scenario). It’s not going to impact my kids personally as they are past that age but there are many nuances to families today.

This is hate speech.

It’s just an internship to encourage young people from lower socioeconomic groups to consider the Civil Service. What’s wrong with that?

Or do you think that the lower classes should know their place?

Yes you’re a real benefit to society in every way. Thank you.

Yes any child would benefit but the whole point is to offer benefits to those who have a tougher journey. Surely you understand this. It’s hardly radical.