AIBU to take a £10k pay cut to join the civil service

[DizzyIzzy2022]

Does anyone have any experience in working within a grade 7 role within the civil service? I've been offered a lawyer role, but a £10k pay cut to current role.

Thanks!

Eh? Do you know the CS isn't just one stress free task? Plenty of high stress and high risk work....

Prison officers and Border Force deal with a lot of violence, drugs, self harm and death.

A parliamentary staffer does a very different role from a DWP PIP assessor, but so do the inspectors for OFSTED / HMICFRS / PINS / Fisheries Protection and so on.

See also Forestry arborists vs RFA deckhands or a Chief Operating Officer vs a Trade Commissioner.

The scale and scope of the CS goes way beyond "stress free".

Depending on the legal work you’re doing, I wouldn’t. G7 is junior in the GLD. I don’t know anyone less than G7 although I work with SCS + G6 in legal so don’t have the full picture when compared to policy G7 is relatively senior by this point. I do get the feeling the G7s are simply there to do as they’re told (in my department at least).

Look at the total package value. Pension, bonus / lack of, working hours, work location etc.

I’ve previously moved roles for a pay cut but increase in hourly rate as one job bought your sole for the salary, the other only wanted 37 hours a week for the salary.

also look at post tax monthly impact. £10k isn’t such a big number through that lens.

Agree there is huge variation in working conditions and culture across the civil service and the very many special arms length bodies and regulators. The main departments have a reputation for being solid or occasionally a bit stolid, the ALBs (which are funded by central departments but act independently according to their statute) for being much more dynamic.
Generalising about what it’s like working in ‘the civil service’ is a bit meaningless. Covers everything from people who administer tax to spies in the field and scientists and researchers. With thousands of other examples in between.

cross posted with GetOffTheRoof

There’s mass redundancies atm. One department is expected to lose up to 25% of staff in the next year or so - mostly at G6/G7 level. So worth considering that before you make any decisions.

From what I’ve heard DHSC has already had mass culling…

Hi. I’m a stressed civil servant working in a high profile area with exposure to ministers. It isn’t true that people don’t get sacked, they do. Likewise we’ve had a round of VES and posts that are vacant are not being filled due to headcount reductions.

I suspect your opinion is based on DWP, HO or HMRC (or maybe MOJ?) - in the CO, DBT, FCDO and HMT there is no room for relaxing and coasting.

@Bumblebee72 try being a diplomat or working in defence/foreign policy. Bloody stressful.

Given that there are over 500,000 civil servants in the UK, your comment is a bit silly...

and on the stressful front…try being in any health related gov dept - indeed most gov depts! - during the pandemic. Slightly daft generalisation.

Previous posters are right to say that G7 is a relatively junior post depending on your own age and experience as a lawyer, how long qualified etc. Maybe not if you’re early 20s though - I don’t think you’ve said.

What I would say is that once you’re in the CS you can quite readily move around between depts, apply for promotions to higher grades, and also leave again for in-house jobs in companies. And in between times you’re getting an interesting glimpse into the ways of government.

500,000 civil servants to do the work of about 100,000 people. Sort of proves the point really.

I did, not law but private to civil service swap. Took paycut to get more sociable hours, more annual leave and better pension.

I love the overall flexibility and when I had to take time off sick I was on full pay.

The downsides are the slow pace, lack of accountability from lots of the teams, people who should have been fired are still here years on. People going sick all the time and noone really manages it due to fear of the union. Can be quite boring compared to private sector.

I ideally would go back to private as am pretty bored and hate the culture but I can't justify the loss of pension etc so I am staying put.

Where did you get that assumption from ?

God no, I’m not a solicitor though but the Civil Service is where careers go to die. It’s the home of the incompetent who are only there for the pension and flexi time. Everything people have said about the horrendous culture is true. There’s a reason they get taken to tribunals a lot (and lose a lot).

Personally, my income is higher outside of CS. I’m taking a £12k pay rise to leave my Grade 7 role, with good prospects of earning more.

Working there?

being promoted internally and witnessing staff at different grades?

being a manager there?

being privy to details of performance management, HR cases, and legal issues?

I’m a CS (not a lawyer) and certainly know plenty of stressed CS’s. Running large departments with great uncertainty and constant changing pressures causes stress. Spending 2yrs on a project to improve the IT and it’s cut overnight is pretty common, nothing ever gets done or improved as they only look at the here and now. Don’t do anymore work on this new IT project, and save 3 million. Never mind what’s been spent already and what would be saved with the automation. It’s crazy and does frustrate you. Sure it’s not as easy to get sacked, but in my dept and operational area, it’s far from stress free.

I’m hugely surprised by some of these comments, I took a huge pay cut to get out of the Civil Service because the culture was appalling and the pressure and stress was making me ill.

I think there must be vast differences between departments because I’ve never worked in a place with a worse attitude to their employees and with more stress than the DWP.

Hopefully other departments are more enjoyable to work for and you will get a lot of fulfilment from your job.

I did, similar money compromise. though as the pension contributions were smaller and I didn’t have to pay for work based parking, my take home pay really didn’t change massively.

pros: work stress is non existent in comparison to what it used to be. People are nice. Flexibility around working hours and (used to be) office location. Pension much better although transfer in process was awful.

cons: nearly every negative preconception I had about the civil service has been true, and now I’m part of that system.

You should join. It's clear you're really across what needs to be done to streamline the civil service.

Depends what your current pension looks like & your age & how long you plan to work for them. The pension is only a valuable benefit for career civil servants who start young - people in competitative professional and technical roles aren’t often going to stay long enough to benefit as th & you may find that your current scheme and higher salary is much better for your long term career.

It depends on your salary and your outgoings. We do not have enough information to give a meaningful answer.

The problem with the CS is that it is so unpredictable. Some of the work is amazing, you’ll have great colleagues, and the intellectual challenge is far above private practice. That is the cream of top government work.

Or you can literally end up doing the legal equivalent of piece work and be bored to tears. No pension arrangements can compensate for the damage that does to your CV.

If you are kind of specialist, do not do it.

Not true. You can access it 10 years before state pension, but a reduced amount to account for receiving it longer.

I’d question whether you are in anything like the most optimal private sector role at the moment if the pay cut to move to CS is only 10k.

I’m also an in house private sector lawyer and wouldn’t be able to get anywhere near the same salary in the CS. I’d literally be taking a 100k pay cut.

A decent private sector role allowing you to make 60k annual pension contributions is way better than even the top CS legal roles.

It really depends on the department - they vary hugely in terms of culture, workload, flexibility with wfh etc. What department/ministry are you looking at?