Civil service 60% mandate

[meagert]

What have your managers said to you? Do you think your department/SCS/line manager will be strict on this? Or do you think it'll be like the last time they tried a departmental push where it was a bit ad hoc?!

Possibly too soon to tell, our SCS haven't said very much yet and will "be in touch soon".

@Nynaeva If you ever do decide to apply again to the CS, come and ask on here for application tips. There’s a very specific knack to CS applications and interviews and if you know it it makes huge difference.

But the exact same level of complaints seem to come from people who work in locally based teams, where they need to do frequent communication with each other.

Not really sure what your place on this thread is, or why you think remote forms of communication can't suffice, but if you really are so desperate to know, my office is such a squeeze that there is no way our team will sit together, it's a large open plan office (pre Covid it was 2 floors, now it's 1), we will be dispersed as we all scrabble for a desk so will inevitably still end up DMing and virtually meeting. There are no where near enough meeting rooms to make use of those the majority of the time. We do not have keyboards, monitors etc, we have to sit hunched over a laptop. The noise is horrendous, as we have offices based around the country even IF we could find a meeting room or sit together, we still have to do the majority of our meetings remotely, this means everyone is sat on their desks talking (desks, not booths or sound dividers etc)

There is absolutely a place for in person communication, I really enjoy a workshop where the full team has committed to be there at the same time, with a meeting room booked and an agenda for the day. That is valuable. Traipsing into the office to squeeze into a building to still do the majority of our communication digitally in subpar conditions is NOT beneficial. It's to appease the gammon Tory voters who don't get to benefit from this progress so don't want anyone else to.

Can I ask a question please, if a CS role says ‘full time, part time, flexible, job share’ on the advert, does this mean they are okay with you requesting any of these things? @meagert or anyone else in the know?

@Sundaefraise it means they are open to discussion, however it will depend on the role as I think it's often a standard wording which isn't discussed with the managers of the job you're applying for! In my role all of those could be suitable. In other roles it would be inflexible hours. The CS though is pretty flexible in most roles.

@Sundaefraise yes as the PP says, I think most jobs have to be advertised in this way unless they have a good upfront reason as to why they can't so it's not a guarantee, in my experience, it's usually easier to spend some time in the role and then apply for flexible working (though you legally have a right to apply from day 1), but that's not always the case, it's always worth applying and negotiating on offer, you've got to be in it to win it as they say!

Just on this - isn't it funny that the government is going to deny prescriptions and benefits to those who "refuse" work but won't do anything to support a policy of universal WFH access. Hope the next government understands this opportunity.

Really worried about this announcement. I live 60 miles from my regional centre so it was already costing me £60 per week to get to work now another £30 on top of that, it's an immediate pay cut of £1480 per year as that's what the extra days travel will cost me. I have already started looking for another job, lots of private companies offering remote work for my line of work.

@Lilifer I looked on Indeed the day of the announcement and the first role I found was fully remote with a pay scale £20-£40k higher than what I'm on now 😂 (obviously would have to factor in pension to that) I stay in the CS for the flexibility foremost, pension second and the interesting work third. If they remove the flexibility, and I can find a job that counteracts the pension issues I will consider a more boring job to have the work life balance I want. As you say, there are roles out there, might take a bit of time and I appreciate the competition will be fierce, but that's the way it'll go, and as soon as they have a large section of the CS looking for work elsewhere productivity will drop because we will have mentally checked out of our roles.

@Nynaeva honestly at the moment competition is fierce for civil service jobs. It may be about the market and not you. Since covid and Brexit there are far more civil servants than jobs and tons of people seem to be applying for every role.

I temp/contract in civil service in central government. Some departments have plenty of space for this. Some departments don’t have, or you find yourself sitting not with your team.

A couple of departments they worked away from London but would come down eg once a month for meetings but would then have local office work if they had to go in.

At least one central London gov department I know didn’t renew its lease so all staff moved to another office with of course less space.

There are a few people I know pre and post covid who only come into the office once a month, vomiting times and cost impact them. I notice I spend more when I’m in the office. I definitely lose approx 1 hour commuting time.

If I were to apply for a central gov job I’d prefer it to be more hybrid/wfh and not have to worry about commuting time and costs.

I've worked remotely since way before covid and have zero intention of returning to the office for any targeted time or expecting my team to. I go in when there's a purpose (meetings, reviews, workshops) but not to sit at a desk and have a Teams call. Plus a lot of my work is confidential and there's no little meeting rooms you can use for privacy anymore.

It's absolutely batshit to try and remove one of the few things that makes up for the crap pay.

Our local PCS are already saying nope. I can see massive industrial action happening over it.

@SoddingWeddings @meagert thank you for your replies that’s very helpful.

HMRC here, I am already required to attend the office 60%, it is measured automatically using log on data. It is calculated on days attended over a calendar month. If we are attending meetings off-site this counts as a day's office attendance but we are required to manually update the tool. I dislike it intensely but at least they haven't mandated full attendance.

You can guess though.

DEFRA = basic
MOD = much higher (without getting into specifics).

Also can sift based on the jobs listed in the CV. Someone who works on fishing policy in defra is definitely not going to have the same as someone working on Iran in MOD.

I did a sift a while ago where the advert explicitly said DV was a requirement and the HM sifted out anyone who didn’t work at three specific departments as it was SO obvious they didn’t have DV.

@Baffledandalarmed I agree job and possibly Dept may mean it is mandatory but I have never known it not state this in a job advert and then sift.

As you said the advert you sifted for explicitly stated DV so the sift met the criteria of fair and open. I would question whether current department is a reliable indicator of DV as I know people who had DV and maintained it but at the time worked in a Dept where most people had BC. Sifting them out purely by Dept could be a breach of the commissioners code.

What I question is if there is no mention in an advert and then you sift on security level then it is not fair and open and breaches the commissioners code.

There are going to be big issues re retaining staff for many different reasons. At lower grades including fast stream, people seem to be unhappy with the additional cost, middle managers seem to be annoyed by lack of flexibility and I know lots of DDs who are incredibly pissed off at the ‘more than 60%’ situation.

It’s also the poor comms that have annoyed people. They probably could have brought it in without causing the complete disaster they have if they’d planned for it better and not allowed gossip and rumour to sweep through the CS before any comms went out.

Yes if stated in the advert you can request but may not be able to offer the hours/days you want.

It’s also the poor comms that have annoyed people. They probably could have brought it in without causing the complete disaster they have if they’d planned for it better and not allowed gossip and rumour to sweep through the CS before any comms went out.

I think this is where we can evaluate their true objective. Is it to make the CS more productive? No, if office working was genuinely needed to make CS more productive there would have been a much more carefully considered process to bring staff onboard tailored by department, this lazy broad brush approach is purely to hit the headlines, be seen to be "tough on wokery" and throw an easy target, that right wing media readers/voters hate, under the bus.

We're having huge deployment and redeployment campaigns in my department, we need to shed a huge number of people. So I feel like the don't care when lots of people (especially working mothers) say they'll have to quit as that's what they want anyway. Depressing.

Yep I totally agree - I could earn a lot more in private sector but it was the flexibility and the nature of the work and my lovely team that kept me there. If the flexibility goes then I may as well be earning more in the private sector and much as I would hate to leave CS I have to find something that works for me and my family commitments. 😔

I feel like the don't care when lots of people (especially working mothers) say they'll have to quit as that's what they want anyway. Depressing.

Depressingly true. This won't impact the middle class, Oxbridge, London living civil servants who have alternate income streams. It is such a step back when they've supposedly been trying to diversify from that cliche.

Let's not make this a divisive thing - plenty of London Oxbridge civil servants are also working mothers without other income and Londoners are less likely to have family support

Let's not make this a divisive thing - plenty of London Oxbridge civil servants are also working mothers without other income and Londoners are less likely to have family support

I know, clearly they're not the ones I meant, I had very specific group of colleagues in mind. Many of my London based colleagues are gutted and I empathise with them but even then they're not in the position of having to potentially give up their jobs, my point is, there is a certain group of civil servants who will be less impacted by this able to continue to progress themselves at pace which I don't resent them for, but it will take the civil service back a step, we were supposed to be encouraging a more diverse work force which has been accelerated in the last 3-4 years, now we could lose it.

Will be fascinating to see the Eqia. It seems a bizarre move in the days after the government has been criticised through the inquiry for being misogynistic in decision-making due to the make-up of no.10 at the time and lack of senior women. No-one seems to be mentioning the 60% plus bit for scs which will presumably mean 4 days. I imagine that will be tough for a lot of women in those roles with children.

I imagine that will be tough for a lot of women in those roles with children.

Absolutely, also stop a lot of G6 women feeling like they can take the step to SCS. I had my youngest going to high school as my deadline for starting to look at SCS seriously, I should be ok childcare wise then, but it'll be much harder now having to restrict the location much further than I could do currently. I just can't see there will be any SCS roles commutable to me for 4+ days, I know that's my fault with where I live, but for the last 3 years I've been excited by the fact my location hasn't needed to hold me back.