Civil Service job cuts - how are people responding?

[OperaStation]

In light of the announcement that the civil service has been ordered to reduce headcount to 2016 levels, how are current and prospective civil servants responding?

In my government department people are considering leaving and joining the private sector and we have a couple of open recruitments in my team (launched before the recruitment freeze that we now have) and both external candidates who were offered roles have now backed out because they no longer want to work for the civil service.

What are other people seeing? And have people been put off joining the civil service since the announcement?

Much the same.

We have some staff who are very worried, I dont think compulsorily redundancy will happen though, we have more who are desperate for a voluntary redundancy package to be announced.

The civil service is a grim place to work at the moment.

I work in HMRC - compliance work. We don’t think it will happen to people who are trained up and experienced. I think they will be harsher though to people who fail exams etc and just kick them out rather than redeploy.

We've also had some excellent external candidates pull out of recruitment campaigns due to the uncertainty - given how much the CD benefits from external joiners (especially as these are senior posts we are recruiting), its such a shame. We'll likely ending up buying in their expertise at a later date for twice the cost 🤨

CD? Fat finger alert. That should be CS^

I'm on maternity leave currently and I've spoken with my manager a few times. My team has always been understaffed but since I went on leave the staff numbers have rocketed. We are now very over staffed and people are going to have to move elsewhere. I just hope I'm not one of those people as it could make my job untenable with 2 very young kids to work around.
Usually half the new staff never turn up to take the role, but this time they all accepted so now everyone is worried they could be on the list to be moved on.

Forgot to mention I've already survived 2 rounds of redundancies and 3 office moves in the last few years.

It doesn't seem likely that there will be a voluntary redundancy scheme like there was in 2010 but we seem to be looking at just not recruiting again. I imagine internal promotion will be stopped too unless the role can be justified with a business case.

I don't want move to the private sector as although my salary is low (AO level) the leave and flexibility works well with two small dc.

I think it will be more than just a freeze in recruitment. My department have already modeled that and it’s not enough.

Nothing has changed in my team. I think generally fairly relaxed for now as will take several years. And hopefully mostly be recruitment freeze and voluntary redundancies. But not sure if we are a bit complacent. My role is actually a bit quiet so talking to my manager next week as i want to be busy and keep developing. Might be also start looking for Eois that arent able to filled externally.

We are already struggling to recruit and now we are returning to hybrid working quite a few are thinking of leaving. The lack of certainty won’t help.
Personally I’m not far off retirement so would welcome a VR exercise but I think it’s unlikely.

I've literally just started (2 weeks ago!) Missed the recruitment freeze by days!

I'm trying not to worry, I was made redundant earlier this year, hence my move, but the team is very small and already overworked, one person has handed in their notice this week and of course won't be replaced.
I've been reassured i'm safe but there is an underlying worry there, I was told in my last role that nobody had heard of anyone being made compulsorally redundant but there wasn't a role for me when they removed my job, other than a massive step down 3 grades which the work would have killed me off! (Think managing a team going down to typing template letters and booking appointments)
Being disabled doesn't help!

In DWP and can't really see where any cuts can be made and there are still some recruitment campaigns.

My team have mentioned it, but I don’t think anyone is worried. I mean my dept has recruited a lot of staff in the last year or two, in the political / world climate we need more staff not less. I’ve just got a promotion (yay) and am going to a much smaller dept. The staffing there seems very generous (ie number of senior staff to run a team). Hope I’m not putting myself at risk. I have another interview for my own dept same grade on Tuesday, not sure what I’d choose if I got them both. I would be thinking about the freeze

I feel reasonably comfortable in the security of my current job / at least having an equivalent job at current grade in current Department, and I'm grateful for that. I'm in a profession which continues to be in pretty high demand. But the recruitment freeze makes my prospects of promotion (which I feel ready for and those around me agree) much harder. It's been a difficult CS jobs market for a while already at my grade and the grade above - there aren't many openings any more, and those there are tend to want the moon on a stick as a result. In

I really need to increase my salary soonish and I'd previously thought that, if promotion was looking difficult, a sideways move to a department with better pay would be a viable option; but that's less likely now too.

We have been understaffed and overworked for a long time and I assume this is only going to get harder now.

I'm seeing a lot of my peers moving into the private sector now. I've always been averse to that move, partly because I'm committed to public service and partly because I worry that I'd have less flexibility to juggle work + kids (but I may be overestimating my current 'flexibility'!) - but I'm watching with interest, and I'm also conscious that waiting until I'm last to leave puts me in a bad position for all prospects.

Working to model awful cuts, and subsequently working to deliver an overstretched and cut-down policy agenda, is pretty miserable. I feel like our best possible outcomes (in terms of what we want to deliver for our sectors or the general public) are hugely constrained, and that's always a professional disappointment I think.

I joined a year ago and need to stay at least two years to keep my CS pension. Recently started a new role on level transfer and feel reasonably secure (am in a profession that’s considered a scarce resource) but worried about the prospects of promotion down the line. Just going to wait and see as I don’t want to leave.

A question for those of you who've faced the possibility of redundancy in the CS before: How long was there between announcing the possibility of redundancies and opening voluntary redundancy/exit schemes?

I'm interested in this too. Been CS for 18 months. Would like to stay for 2 years for pension purposes.

When we went through the last round of voluntary redundancy it was quite quick. They tend to approve redundancy for people who are closer to retirement age and poor performers though, rather than people who are performing well with many years good work ahead.