Civil service bloodbath.

[Oldstacker]

Some parts of MOD have been in & out of agencies more than once since they were civilianised with a view to making them wholly commercial entities. The problem is they are either such niche activities or so tied to certain defence activities that they are not attractive to industry in their current form or with their current commitments because there is either no money to be made or the 'loss making' activities cannot be cut out. While that is the case those civilian posts cannot be cut.

 

[Tin basher]

certain defence activities that they are not attractive to industry in their current form or with their current commitments because there is either no money to be made or the 'loss making' activities cannot be cut out.

Exactly private firms can't, wont run at a sustained loss they fold if they do. They are not some form of benevalent charity who work until the shareholders money runs out . That apparently dirty word profit is a must for a company to survive and if that niche defence area is so niche it won't ever make money it's a private non starter (Huge football clubs are the exception)

 

[Cat Techie]

Some unions operating in monopolistic industries with a monopolistic workforces are still pretty powerful, if cars can drive on streets without driver input, why do we have train drivers, never mind retaining conductors.

Because automatic vehicles are fine, until they fail or have an issue their human designers never thought of. Strong unions? BALPA. You will not get a union that is more right wing that those Nigel's. I am in Prospect as an LAE. Took a couple of redundancy scares to realise should pay someone to look after my workers rights interests. Company just have taken them up as our representative after a department employee vote. Most of the engineers took up union membership.

 

[busby1971]

Nothing weong with union membership, or the union movement.

Just like anything in life they are no where near perfect and service users (the ones that pay) should always remeber they are not there for them.

 

[Tin basher]

One way of getting the numbers down just recruit less and let the inevitable staff churn/retirement do the rest for you.

"There were 384,000 civil servants working in 2016..................as the UK prepared to leave the EU, numbers steadily rose until they reached 475,000 at the end of last year."

Using my meagre math skills 475,000 - 384,000 = exactly the 91,000 they supposedly want to get rid off. Perhaps then the so called "blood bath" is actually just a plan to return the CS numbers to 2016 levels.

Civil service pauses fast-track graduate scheme to cut staff numbers

The government is aiming to cut one-in-five jobs to get the civil service back to 2016 levels.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[J Y Kelly]

About once a week we are getting emails from people high up in the Civil Service about future staffing levels. I see this a paving the way to an announcement in a few months time of job cuts. It will be dressed up as a new vision, giving the tax payer value for money etc. I have mentioned the possibility of redundancy to some of my colleagues who seem very interested and have done their sums with the redundancy calculator.

 

[Cornish_Pikey]

They can use the cutbacks to pay for the pensions debacle.

 

[Cat Techie]

Nothing weong with union membership, or the union movement.

Just like anything in life they are no where near perfect and service users (the ones that pay) should always remeber they are not there for them.

You ever been in a union? Or just the management side taking orders from the Owner?

 

[Stevienics]

The provisional MOD Civil Servant reduction targets in % were promulgated today - remembering that these are always over estimated, go on...have a go at guessing.

 

[Cat Techie]

They can use the cutbacks to pay for the pensions debacle.

No, the money will go to pay for the mess the Tories have caused with the economy.

 

[muttywhitedog]

They could always start by binning off the CS who thought he'd "got away" with organising a party at No 10, instead of giving him a Foreign Office job in Saudi.

 

[Cat Techie]

They could always start by binning off the CS who thought he'd "got away" with organising a party at No 10, instead of giving him a Foreign Office job in Saudi.

This lot in power need shooting, plus all the people that voted for them. Problem solved AKA Logan's Run.

 

[vim_fuego]

The provisional MOD Civil Servant reduction targets in % were promulgated today - remembering that these are always over estimated, go on...have a go at guessing.

25%? Aim high is what I always say.

 

[Stevienics]

25%? Aim high is what I always say.

Actually, you are only just in the window from the south end

 

[metimmee]

The other typical scenario is that management finally grasp that activity X needs to be done, so someone with management of activity X(ish) is recruited to fill the post. That person then reveals they have never done X(ish) in a defence environment and probably not even a similar environment (think Air engineering vs submarine engineering say) so spends 12 months investigating the task, doing their mandatory training and getting involved with lots of non-X but 'good for career development' stuff, drafting a strategy document for the seniors to sign off, then a policy plan for the seniors to sign off & then a process map for everyone to sign off (which they don't because it is flawed) before announcing that they have found a better post to move to. The end result is that 12 - 18 months after the seniors were interested enough to fill the post, lots of effort has been expended but X still hasn't actually been done and either the whole process starts again or the seniors have become more interested in something else (because they are different people by now) or are under pressure to cut budgets so the newly vacant post (which doesn't DO anything is the first to be cut. Until new seniors can be persuaded that X really should be done and the merry-go-round starts again.

I've seen it several times....

This is borne from the CS not paying enough to recruit deep specialists and having to grow their own. Until they pay more, this is a big risk.

Where I work, we have trouble recruiting experienced hires. It is usually a lifestyle choice, wanting to do something interesting and impactful. They've earned a wedge in the private sector and fancy a change. I've managed to recruit a handful in the couple of years that I have been in my current role. So we end up recruiting green-grads and teaching them on the job. At about 3 years in, they've got a choice. They know, at a minimum, they can earn £20k more else where or do they stick around because they like the work. They absolutely are good enough to make their fortunes elsewhere but stay through choice. Right now, there is a huge shortage of the skills we grow internally.

One of my challenges is making sure they don't burn out, making sure they take leave and don't build up too much flexi and actually record the hours they work! One of the things that folks don't seem to understand is that many CS do the job because they believe in serving the nation! They assume the reason they are CS is because they cant possibly cut it in the private sector, in my experience, they couldn't be more wrong.