| Francis Maude Mk. 2 09:37 - Mar 9 with 3442 views | DJR |
Unions on alert as Labour prepares to unveil ‘Trumpian’ plan for civil service
Performance-related pay, exit process for poor performers and more digitalisation among proposed measures intended to revolutionise Whitehall
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/08/unions-on-alert-as-labour-prepa
Having worked in Whitehall for nearly 30 years ago, it always frustrates me when politicians blame civil servants, rather than poor policy or forces outside anyone's control, for our problems. It's a bit like when they say it is not the policy but the communications that are to blame.
Blaming it on the civil service, the article says that McFadden is expected to say working people have not seen improvements in their job opportunities, the safety of their neighbourhoods or the length of time they have to wait for NHS treatment when they are sick.
But to take but three examples when it comes to the NHS, PFI, austerity and the Lansley reforms represent a failure of policy not a failure of the civil service. And Covid, something outside government control, has also had an impact.
And the issue in recent decades is that governments force through policy despite civil service misgivings.
[Post edited 9 Mar 9:44]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 09:44 - Mar 9 with 2598 views | redrickstuhaart |
Whislt I broadly agree, public sector culture is, in many instances, painfully bureaucratic, self serving and box ticking based. Things that take 24 hours to sort in private sphere can take months. So there are some serious issues of the civil service and public sector management.
They are however continually hindered by funding, box ticking requirements and stats, poorly conceived and implemented reforms and digitalisation etc makign the jobs impossible. |  | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 09:45 - Mar 9 with 2576 views | lowhouseblue |
so, genuine question (in that i don't know the answer), why has public sector employment risen by 600,000 since 2020? i appreciate only approx 100,000 of that is within the civil service, but still quite a rise. and why at the same time has measured productivity fallen? just asking cos i have seen the figures quoted regularly but have never searched out the explanation. |  |
| And so as the loose-bowelled pigeon of time swoops low over the unsuspecting tourist of destiny, and the flatulent skunk of fate wanders into the air-conditioning system of eternity, I notice it's the end of the show |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:00 - Mar 9 with 2532 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 09:45 - Mar 9 by lowhouseblue |
so, genuine question (in that i don't know the answer), why has public sector employment risen by 600,000 since 2020? i appreciate only approx 100,000 of that is within the civil service, but still quite a rise. and why at the same time has measured productivity fallen? just asking cos i have seen the figures quoted regularly but have never searched out the explanation. |
The overall headcount is still less than what it was in 2009 but I did come across this 2023 article about the increases since 2018 from the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2023/mar-2023/Chart-of-the
Overall, the public sector in the UK has seen both employment headcount and hours worked per employee grow over the last five years as demands on public services have increased significantly. This is partly down to an ageing society, which puts pressure on the NHS, combined with the consequences of the pandemic, which exacerbated backlogs throughout the system. It is also a consequence of Brexit, which has added significantly to administrative and policy burdens placed on the civil service in particular. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:05 - Mar 9 with 2514 views | bsw72 |
I’ve not worked in public sector but a couple of close friends have and we often compare the difference between the two.
I spent 20 years in Investment Banking and the last 15 years in wider financial services. I have had to frequently manage out underperforming staff or reduce staffing/improve efficiency to meet the requirements of the board to remain competitive.
I have effectively shrunk my teams in the last 10 years while delivering improved service through better staffing, improved technology etc but in that same period civil service has grown, some of which needed as a result of policies such as brexit but I question the validity of all growth.
Note that attrition in the civil service is around 7.5% last year which is incredibly low compared to corporate sector of around 12-15%, suggesting that people have no incentive to move on or be moved on.
People should not be dismissed for the sake of it but as a tax payer I want to know that my money is not being wasted on bloated overly administrative functions or underperforming staff. |  | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:10 - Mar 9 with 2486 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
Bit of a stretch to label anything our government does as similar to the ramblings of that madman. |  |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:16 - Mar 9 with 2459 views | Plums |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:05 - Mar 9 by bsw72 |
I’ve not worked in public sector but a couple of close friends have and we often compare the difference between the two.
I spent 20 years in Investment Banking and the last 15 years in wider financial services. I have had to frequently manage out underperforming staff or reduce staffing/improve efficiency to meet the requirements of the board to remain competitive.
I have effectively shrunk my teams in the last 10 years while delivering improved service through better staffing, improved technology etc but in that same period civil service has grown, some of which needed as a result of policies such as brexit but I question the validity of all growth.
Note that attrition in the civil service is around 7.5% last year which is incredibly low compared to corporate sector of around 12-15%, suggesting that people have no incentive to move on or be moved on.
People should not be dismissed for the sake of it but as a tax payer I want to know that my money is not being wasted on bloated overly administrative functions or underperforming staff. |
I think there's a false equivalence in the public/ private sector comparisons. They are different entities, established for different reasons and with very different missions.
I work in higher education. Our institution has to comply with 160+ regulators, a burden that isn't asked for or wanted but which has to be met and which has resulted in increasing staffing over the years. Most entrepreneurs wouldn't even consider entering a market with that level of red tape to meet.
That isn't to say I don't spend much of my time trying to fight the mad systems that are in place internally but they are a consequence of humans operating in a large, complex organisation with a public, private and civic mission.
I don't think there are many easy answers but the simplified solutions parroted in the press are usually so mis-informed as to be laughable. |  |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:23 - Mar 9 with 2426 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:10 - Mar 9 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Bit of a stretch to label anything our government does as similar to the ramblings of that madman. |
That was the headline but this was the context in which the term was used.
Late last year Dave Penman, the head of the senior civil servants’ union (the FDA*), wrote to Keir Starmer urging him to rethink his “frankly insulting” criticism of Whitehall for being comfortable with falling standards. Penman suggested Starmer had invoked “Trumpian” language by saying that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
*I am a a retired member of the FDA. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:31 - Mar 9 with 2399 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:23 - Mar 9 by DJR |
That was the headline but this was the context in which the term was used.
Late last year Dave Penman, the head of the senior civil servants’ union (the FDA*), wrote to Keir Starmer urging him to rethink his “frankly insulting” criticism of Whitehall for being comfortable with falling standards. Penman suggested Starmer had invoked “Trumpian” language by saying that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
*I am a a retired member of the FDA. |
Yeah the author has plucked that out for the headline in order to draw people in, which is exactly what headlines are designed to do to be fair. | |
| Trust the process. Trust Phil. |
| |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:33 - Mar 9 with 2392 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:16 - Mar 9 by Plums |
I think there's a false equivalence in the public/ private sector comparisons. They are different entities, established for different reasons and with very different missions.
I work in higher education. Our institution has to comply with 160+ regulators, a burden that isn't asked for or wanted but which has to be met and which has resulted in increasing staffing over the years. Most entrepreneurs wouldn't even consider entering a market with that level of red tape to meet.
That isn't to say I don't spend much of my time trying to fight the mad systems that are in place internally but they are a consequence of humans operating in a large, complex organisation with a public, private and civic mission.
I don't think there are many easy answers but the simplified solutions parroted in the press are usually so mis-informed as to be laughable. |
The other thing with the civil service, in particular, is that is has to cope with sometimes unique and uncharted developments for which there is no precedent. Covid and Brexit being two recent developments.
Tesco's has been a supermarket for all of its existence. And even if a private company decides to go off in a different direction, it will usually acquire or use a company which has a wealth of expertise in that area. For example, Sainsbury's Bank and Tesco's Bank both stared off as joint ventures with major UK banks. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:35 - Mar 9 with 2372 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:31 - Mar 9 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Yeah the author has plucked that out for the headline in order to draw people in, which is exactly what headlines are designed to do to be fair. |
To be perfectly honest, I hadn't even really noticed the word. As a former civil servant, it was the substance of the article with which I was concerned. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:43 - Mar 9 with 2343 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:05 - Mar 9 by bsw72 |
I’ve not worked in public sector but a couple of close friends have and we often compare the difference between the two.
I spent 20 years in Investment Banking and the last 15 years in wider financial services. I have had to frequently manage out underperforming staff or reduce staffing/improve efficiency to meet the requirements of the board to remain competitive.
I have effectively shrunk my teams in the last 10 years while delivering improved service through better staffing, improved technology etc but in that same period civil service has grown, some of which needed as a result of policies such as brexit but I question the validity of all growth.
Note that attrition in the civil service is around 7.5% last year which is incredibly low compared to corporate sector of around 12-15%, suggesting that people have no incentive to move on or be moved on.
People should not be dismissed for the sake of it but as a tax payer I want to know that my money is not being wasted on bloated overly administrative functions or underperforming staff. |
One thing the Civil Service is very good at is flexible working and job shares, which probably explains the relatively high number of women in higher grades in the Civil Service.
The following link indicate that in 2022 47% of Senior Civil Servants were women. I rather doubt any private sector organisation comes anywhere near this figure, and this may in part also explain higher rates of retention in the Civil Service, as does the prospect of the loss of pension.
https://civilservant.org.uk/library/2023-IfG-Sex_of_the_civil_service.pdf | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:43 - Mar 9 with 2342 views | Guthrum |
Altho I know quite a number of Civil Servants who are unhappy at perceived lack of competence in middle management (and too many political animals at higher levels). Plus technical specialists who have left due to the disparity in earning potential between the CS and the private sector (something which could, perhaps, be remedied by incentivisation.
As with all these things, it depends what is actually proposed, how it is implemented and what the underlying motivation might be. If it's just to weaken CS ability to resist Ministerial incompetence, (deliberately or accidentally) then that is a bad thing. |  |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:52 - Mar 9 with 2310 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:43 - Mar 9 by Guthrum |
Altho I know quite a number of Civil Servants who are unhappy at perceived lack of competence in middle management (and too many political animals at higher levels). Plus technical specialists who have left due to the disparity in earning potential between the CS and the private sector (something which could, perhaps, be remedied by incentivisation.
As with all these things, it depends what is actually proposed, how it is implemented and what the underlying motivation might be. If it's just to weaken CS ability to resist Ministerial incompetence, (deliberately or accidentally) then that is a bad thing. |
An experiment was tried in my office (specialist lawyers drafting government Bills) under the Major government of contracting out some work to the private sectors.
With City law firm rates of charges, it ended up costing vastly more than our office and the work produced was pretty hopeless and never used.
The experiment was never tried again, and under the Labour govenrment the head of our office did manage to negotiate for all of us a hefty allowance on top of salary because he had very good relations with the then Leader of the House, who realised the importance of what we did.
Indeed, I don't remember Mrs Thatcher or Tony Blair bad-mouthing the Civil Service, which seems to have become a thing now that money is tight. [Post edited 9 Mar 11:16]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 11:32 - Mar 9 with 2198 views | Churchman |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:05 - Mar 9 by bsw72 |
I’ve not worked in public sector but a couple of close friends have and we often compare the difference between the two.
I spent 20 years in Investment Banking and the last 15 years in wider financial services. I have had to frequently manage out underperforming staff or reduce staffing/improve efficiency to meet the requirements of the board to remain competitive.
I have effectively shrunk my teams in the last 10 years while delivering improved service through better staffing, improved technology etc but in that same period civil service has grown, some of which needed as a result of policies such as brexit but I question the validity of all growth.
Note that attrition in the civil service is around 7.5% last year which is incredibly low compared to corporate sector of around 12-15%, suggesting that people have no incentive to move on or be moved on.
People should not be dismissed for the sake of it but as a tax payer I want to know that my money is not being wasted on bloated overly administrative functions or underperforming staff. |
Believe it or not, people who work in the public sector pay tax too. Anyhow, I’ve worked in the private sector for a small IT company, done zero hours contract work, retail banking for a good chunk and the last 16 years were spent working for the civil service, mostly in project management. The opening post is an accurate assessment of the CS in my view.
Governments tend to firstly blame their predecessors, then they blame other outside factors, then they blame the Civil Service. Every government does it. Why? Because the CS cannot fight back. Easy target. The CS code prevents them. No doubt ‘gold plated pensions’ will be waved about soon. Absolute nonsense.
Government sets policy, Civil Servants implement it. Their role was also to challenge it. With the work I did I saw this literally first hand and knew the processes. The minister always had the final decision, whether it was rotten (see Truss who didn’t allow challenge or Cameron who refused point blank the CS an offer to assess the impacts of Brexit before the Referendum) or sensible.
I saw useless people in all my working life and a lot of good ones too. There are good and bad employers too. The IT company was good when I started and rotten when I left. Fancy being told to p£ss off on a Friday and told to sue for your statutory rights? I saw it and didn’t like it, but it’s still ‘managing out’. Victorian style.
In the retail banking world did I have to redeploy, discipline and on a couple of occasions fire people? Yes. I hated it (some people do get a real buzz from sacking people. Sense of power) but it had to be done and it was done within the simple but fair processes the company operated in.
Are the processes for moving under performers on in the CS good? No they are not. Something that struck me very early with them. My first boss, it turned out, was sexually harassing my colleague and all the evidence was there. They retired him. He should have been sacked on the spot. It was poor procedurally and poor management. The people responsible took the easy route.
On the upside the Civil Service has by and large a pretty dedicated workforce. It has been treated abominably for years. Under invested in, I don’t thing the very senior people have the first idea what resources they have at there disposal. A demotivated under trained workforce might give you the bare minimum. It won’t give you much more. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Beyond a certain grade, the CS becomes political. Below that it’s not. Need I say more. I left on the grade just beneath that nightmare which given what I’m like wouldn’t have ended well had I been promoted further.
Staff turnover? I think if it’s relatively low that’s a good thing. It costs a fortune to recruit people and even more to train them. Why not train those you have and pay them properly? Not all Civil Servants are little people playing on the Internet all day or fumbling though files doing an ‘overly administratively function’. If you disagree fine - please give me some examples.
CS work encompasses everything from lawyers to people working at the border. Talking of that, why did CS numbers start rising in 2018? Brexit. If you want to have border controls, you cannot do it without people. Other areas of numbers rising? I’d need to know where and why before commentating on that.
As for your money being wasted, I worked on one of the Brexit teams. In the austerity years leading up to it, to stop your taxes being wasted the old, willing to go and the useless mouths were pushed out/ left. In HMRC tax inspectors left by the 1000. That included friends of mine who were bringing in 100s £1000s doing specialist stuff that required experience. Tax gap v savings? Rich avoiding tax? It’s not hard to work out how daft that was. Political short sightedness led to that. Nothing else
Another area of Francis Maude’s dead wood (his words to the staff) was project teams. Some departments like DEFRA got rid of the lot, others scaled them back to nothing while some like HMRC because of their work, retained them. Brexit comes along - the CS was massively short of project people including the team I was with.
Easy solution. Private Sector. Quicker, more efficient, they’ll get the job done! 50% of the team I was on were contractors. Some were good, some awful, some in between. They were no better, worse or more qualified than the CS people. Shame loads had been shipped out to meet a political quota. The very lowest pay rate was £1800 a day (to their company). Thanks to hollowing out the CS teams there was no other way.
In conclusion, if you want a better Civil Service, you need a better set of politicians first. Then you need better, non political, senior management, improved processes, training and working conditions. I worked in Parliament St/Treasury building mostly which was great. Most are not. It costs money and the one thing no govt years has wanted to do is invest in anything, let alone the CS.
Apologies for the rant. [Post edited 9 Mar 11:43]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 12:15 - Mar 9 with 2102 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:43 - Mar 9 by Guthrum |
Altho I know quite a number of Civil Servants who are unhappy at perceived lack of competence in middle management (and too many political animals at higher levels). Plus technical specialists who have left due to the disparity in earning potential between the CS and the private sector (something which could, perhaps, be remedied by incentivisation.
As with all these things, it depends what is actually proposed, how it is implemented and what the underlying motivation might be. If it's just to weaken CS ability to resist Ministerial incompetence, (deliberately or accidentally) then that is a bad thing. |
I would imagine perceived lack of competence of middle management is not confined to the civil service but your point about political animals at higher levels has some resonance at least in Whitehall, not least because these days toadying (rather than critical analysis) is one way of getting ahead.
Indeed, toadying may explain the appointments but it doesn't lead to good policy making.
However, my experience is that the worst for this sort of thing are the political adviser "whiz kids" who have little life experience and often come up with policies that don't really add up to scrutiny: the Lansley reforms being one of the worst examples.
A more recent example is the local government reorganisation proposals which a thread of mine highlighted a few days ago. [Post edited 9 Mar 14:28]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 12:19 - Mar 9 with 2065 views | Whos_blue |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 11:32 - Mar 9 by Churchman |
Believe it or not, people who work in the public sector pay tax too. Anyhow, I’ve worked in the private sector for a small IT company, done zero hours contract work, retail banking for a good chunk and the last 16 years were spent working for the civil service, mostly in project management. The opening post is an accurate assessment of the CS in my view.
Governments tend to firstly blame their predecessors, then they blame other outside factors, then they blame the Civil Service. Every government does it. Why? Because the CS cannot fight back. Easy target. The CS code prevents them. No doubt ‘gold plated pensions’ will be waved about soon. Absolute nonsense.
Government sets policy, Civil Servants implement it. Their role was also to challenge it. With the work I did I saw this literally first hand and knew the processes. The minister always had the final decision, whether it was rotten (see Truss who didn’t allow challenge or Cameron who refused point blank the CS an offer to assess the impacts of Brexit before the Referendum) or sensible.
I saw useless people in all my working life and a lot of good ones too. There are good and bad employers too. The IT company was good when I started and rotten when I left. Fancy being told to p£ss off on a Friday and told to sue for your statutory rights? I saw it and didn’t like it, but it’s still ‘managing out’. Victorian style.
In the retail banking world did I have to redeploy, discipline and on a couple of occasions fire people? Yes. I hated it (some people do get a real buzz from sacking people. Sense of power) but it had to be done and it was done within the simple but fair processes the company operated in.
Are the processes for moving under performers on in the CS good? No they are not. Something that struck me very early with them. My first boss, it turned out, was sexually harassing my colleague and all the evidence was there. They retired him. He should have been sacked on the spot. It was poor procedurally and poor management. The people responsible took the easy route.
On the upside the Civil Service has by and large a pretty dedicated workforce. It has been treated abominably for years. Under invested in, I don’t thing the very senior people have the first idea what resources they have at there disposal. A demotivated under trained workforce might give you the bare minimum. It won’t give you much more. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Beyond a certain grade, the CS becomes political. Below that it’s not. Need I say more. I left on the grade just beneath that nightmare which given what I’m like wouldn’t have ended well had I been promoted further.
Staff turnover? I think if it’s relatively low that’s a good thing. It costs a fortune to recruit people and even more to train them. Why not train those you have and pay them properly? Not all Civil Servants are little people playing on the Internet all day or fumbling though files doing an ‘overly administratively function’. If you disagree fine - please give me some examples.
CS work encompasses everything from lawyers to people working at the border. Talking of that, why did CS numbers start rising in 2018? Brexit. If you want to have border controls, you cannot do it without people. Other areas of numbers rising? I’d need to know where and why before commentating on that.
As for your money being wasted, I worked on one of the Brexit teams. In the austerity years leading up to it, to stop your taxes being wasted the old, willing to go and the useless mouths were pushed out/ left. In HMRC tax inspectors left by the 1000. That included friends of mine who were bringing in 100s £1000s doing specialist stuff that required experience. Tax gap v savings? Rich avoiding tax? It’s not hard to work out how daft that was. Political short sightedness led to that. Nothing else
Another area of Francis Maude’s dead wood (his words to the staff) was project teams. Some departments like DEFRA got rid of the lot, others scaled them back to nothing while some like HMRC because of their work, retained them. Brexit comes along - the CS was massively short of project people including the team I was with.
Easy solution. Private Sector. Quicker, more efficient, they’ll get the job done! 50% of the team I was on were contractors. Some were good, some awful, some in between. They were no better, worse or more qualified than the CS people. Shame loads had been shipped out to meet a political quota. The very lowest pay rate was £1800 a day (to their company). Thanks to hollowing out the CS teams there was no other way.
In conclusion, if you want a better Civil Service, you need a better set of politicians first. Then you need better, non political, senior management, improved processes, training and working conditions. I worked in Parliament St/Treasury building mostly which was great. Most are not. It costs money and the one thing no govt years has wanted to do is invest in anything, let alone the CS.
Apologies for the rant. [Post edited 9 Mar 11:43]
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Thought provoking, well written post Churchers.
Enjoyed reading that. |  |
| Distortion becomes somehow pure in its wildness. |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 12:59 - Mar 9 with 1981 views | bsw72 |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 11:32 - Mar 9 by Churchman |
Believe it or not, people who work in the public sector pay tax too. Anyhow, I’ve worked in the private sector for a small IT company, done zero hours contract work, retail banking for a good chunk and the last 16 years were spent working for the civil service, mostly in project management. The opening post is an accurate assessment of the CS in my view.
Governments tend to firstly blame their predecessors, then they blame other outside factors, then they blame the Civil Service. Every government does it. Why? Because the CS cannot fight back. Easy target. The CS code prevents them. No doubt ‘gold plated pensions’ will be waved about soon. Absolute nonsense.
Government sets policy, Civil Servants implement it. Their role was also to challenge it. With the work I did I saw this literally first hand and knew the processes. The minister always had the final decision, whether it was rotten (see Truss who didn’t allow challenge or Cameron who refused point blank the CS an offer to assess the impacts of Brexit before the Referendum) or sensible.
I saw useless people in all my working life and a lot of good ones too. There are good and bad employers too. The IT company was good when I started and rotten when I left. Fancy being told to p£ss off on a Friday and told to sue for your statutory rights? I saw it and didn’t like it, but it’s still ‘managing out’. Victorian style.
In the retail banking world did I have to redeploy, discipline and on a couple of occasions fire people? Yes. I hated it (some people do get a real buzz from sacking people. Sense of power) but it had to be done and it was done within the simple but fair processes the company operated in.
Are the processes for moving under performers on in the CS good? No they are not. Something that struck me very early with them. My first boss, it turned out, was sexually harassing my colleague and all the evidence was there. They retired him. He should have been sacked on the spot. It was poor procedurally and poor management. The people responsible took the easy route.
On the upside the Civil Service has by and large a pretty dedicated workforce. It has been treated abominably for years. Under invested in, I don’t thing the very senior people have the first idea what resources they have at there disposal. A demotivated under trained workforce might give you the bare minimum. It won’t give you much more. It doesn’t have to be that way.
Beyond a certain grade, the CS becomes political. Below that it’s not. Need I say more. I left on the grade just beneath that nightmare which given what I’m like wouldn’t have ended well had I been promoted further.
Staff turnover? I think if it’s relatively low that’s a good thing. It costs a fortune to recruit people and even more to train them. Why not train those you have and pay them properly? Not all Civil Servants are little people playing on the Internet all day or fumbling though files doing an ‘overly administratively function’. If you disagree fine - please give me some examples.
CS work encompasses everything from lawyers to people working at the border. Talking of that, why did CS numbers start rising in 2018? Brexit. If you want to have border controls, you cannot do it without people. Other areas of numbers rising? I’d need to know where and why before commentating on that.
As for your money being wasted, I worked on one of the Brexit teams. In the austerity years leading up to it, to stop your taxes being wasted the old, willing to go and the useless mouths were pushed out/ left. In HMRC tax inspectors left by the 1000. That included friends of mine who were bringing in 100s £1000s doing specialist stuff that required experience. Tax gap v savings? Rich avoiding tax? It’s not hard to work out how daft that was. Political short sightedness led to that. Nothing else
Another area of Francis Maude’s dead wood (his words to the staff) was project teams. Some departments like DEFRA got rid of the lot, others scaled them back to nothing while some like HMRC because of their work, retained them. Brexit comes along - the CS was massively short of project people including the team I was with.
Easy solution. Private Sector. Quicker, more efficient, they’ll get the job done! 50% of the team I was on were contractors. Some were good, some awful, some in between. They were no better, worse or more qualified than the CS people. Shame loads had been shipped out to meet a political quota. The very lowest pay rate was £1800 a day (to their company). Thanks to hollowing out the CS teams there was no other way.
In conclusion, if you want a better Civil Service, you need a better set of politicians first. Then you need better, non political, senior management, improved processes, training and working conditions. I worked in Parliament St/Treasury building mostly which was great. Most are not. It costs money and the one thing no govt years has wanted to do is invest in anything, let alone the CS.
Apologies for the rant. [Post edited 9 Mar 11:43]
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Thanks. I acknowledged Brexit as a driver for increased heads, and you highlighted the fact that they are inefficient at exiting people, actually citing a sexual harassment case. As for other inefficiency examples off the top of my head:
NHS IT system failures
Handling of Horizon IT issues
PPE purchasing debacles in COVID
Home insulation grant failures
Without a doubt there are good people in the public sector and the frequent change of gvmt and policy impacts performance but I think there are fundamental issues with the lack of technology and digitalisation adoption compounded by poor people practices.
Sorry if that offends, just my opinion based on conversations with friends and family who work or have worked in it. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 14:50 - Mar 9 with 1861 views | mutters |
I have worked both for and with the civil service over the years (directly and also as a client numerous times) on a number of projects, and I can honestly say that they are the most inefficient clients I have ever worked with.
Some departments are better than others, but overall, if they worked for a private client, they would be gone pretty quickly.
This is a massive generalisation but I can see where this directive has come from if my experience is consistent.
(For some context I am talking about IT services with engagement on over 20 projects across 15+ years with 6/7 different departments) |  |
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 15:11 - Mar 9 with 1813 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 14:50 - Mar 9 by mutters |
I have worked both for and with the civil service over the years (directly and also as a client numerous times) on a number of projects, and I can honestly say that they are the most inefficient clients I have ever worked with.
Some departments are better than others, but overall, if they worked for a private client, they would be gone pretty quickly.
This is a massive generalisation but I can see where this directive has come from if my experience is consistent.
(For some context I am talking about IT services with engagement on over 20 projects across 15+ years with 6/7 different departments) |
Yes, I think that is an area of concern, although in the case of, say, the Horizon scandal (involving the Post Office) the fault appeared to lie with Fujitsu.
I suppose the question arises as to whether the people you deal with as clients are paid at the same level as their equivalents in the private sector. If paid less, maybe the civil service doesn't attract the best talent. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 16:19 - Mar 9 with 1703 views | Churchman |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 15:11 - Mar 9 by DJR |
Yes, I think that is an area of concern, although in the case of, say, the Horizon scandal (involving the Post Office) the fault appeared to lie with Fujitsu.
I suppose the question arises as to whether the people you deal with as clients are paid at the same level as their equivalents in the private sector. If paid less, maybe the civil service doesn't attract the best talent. |
Procurement and contracts is a weakness with the Civil Service. How much is through political interference I’m not sure. Fujitsu, who supplied IT kit to HMRC, were awful. Somebody signed that contract. They charged for the simplest of tasks, through the nose. Refurbed desktop, that’ll be £1500 please. Laptop, £3000. Phone call, £37 just to ring the number. New work mobile phones - they missed a line out of the instructions to synch them and charged HMRC for every single call when nobody could load them up.
Horizon and NHS systems? Not good. Where was the authorisation, expertise and control? And which politician authorised the handing over of government buildings to an offshore company?
Just as bad is MoD procurement. At one point they bought about 10 Chinooks from the US. To save money, they went to a private U.K. contractor that promised it could produce the software cheaper than the American manufacturer. The deal was done. Hooray for the taxpayer! Shame the private company couldn’t deliver what it promised - a common outcome with IT companies. The Chinooks were in a shed for at least 10 years unusable at around £30m an aeroplane. They may even still be there. £300m of scrap.
But before we get too moist about the private sector, let’s not forget who caused the financial crash and in Halifax’s case bankrupted a 150 year old company. Not helped by Gordon Brown messing up banking regulatory bodies.
I worked both sides of the fence. The project people in the CS were all qualified but some were better than others. I was part of a team that overlooked the Chancellor’s announcements/fiscal projects for three years. There would be around 75 live ones at any one time and maybe 30 odd at the end of the lifecycle. They invariably involved the private sector, other governments you name it. I saw good and bad.
With the Brexit work I was involved with after that, the variety, who was dealt with, projects and activities were off the scale. The people involved will never get any credit and neither will the full story be told. But I witnessed Civil Servants achieving some astonishing things and showing expertise extraordinary commitment under levels of pressure I very rarely saw in the private sector.
It’s easy to talk in generalisms and for politicians to hide behind them. Easy to blame too and the CS are a juicy target. In the ever growing crisis in the world both sectors need to work together better and fast. [Post edited 9 Mar 16:27]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 16:25 - Mar 9 with 1687 views | Leaky |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:16 - Mar 9 by Plums |
I think there's a false equivalence in the public/ private sector comparisons. They are different entities, established for different reasons and with very different missions.
I work in higher education. Our institution has to comply with 160+ regulators, a burden that isn't asked for or wanted but which has to be met and which has resulted in increasing staffing over the years. Most entrepreneurs wouldn't even consider entering a market with that level of red tape to meet.
That isn't to say I don't spend much of my time trying to fight the mad systems that are in place internally but they are a consequence of humans operating in a large, complex organisation with a public, private and civic mission.
I don't think there are many easy answers but the simplified solutions parroted in the press are usually so mis-informed as to be laughable. |
My son works on a military base servicing oil boilers. I do the same job working in the the private sector. If I could charge the same amount my son's company charges I would only need to work 2 days amonth. I have heard the same stories in the Prison service & NHS. Someone needs to extract a digit from there anus. |  | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 17:29 - Mar 9 with 1593 views | DJR |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 16:25 - Mar 9 by Leaky |
My son works on a military base servicing oil boilers. I do the same job working in the the private sector. If I could charge the same amount my son's company charges I would only need to work 2 days amonth. I have heard the same stories in the Prison service & NHS. Someone needs to extract a digit from there anus. |
Maybe it depends on the sector/organisation but I heard the other day that the NHS pays much less for drugs than is the case in the States because of the NHS's buying power.
This article confirms it.
https://lowdownnhs.info/explainers/billions-are-spent-by-the-nhs-on-drugs-every-
"And this [negotiated discounts] is often the way – the powerful position the NHS sits in as the provider of almost 100% of healthcare in the UK, means such deals can be struck. Such confidential deals are not the only way prices are controlled in the UK, however the powerful negotiating position of the NHS is a major factor that enables NHS patients, in the main, to receive the drugs they need for treatment and for the the cost of drugs to not spiral out of control."
"It is not easy to compare drug prices across markets due to the complicated nature of rebates and discounts that operate, that are often confidential. It is however clear that drug prices in the UK are much lower than in several other developed markets and substantially lower than in the USA." [Post edited 9 Mar 17:31]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 21:27 - Mar 9 with 1460 views | Plums |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 16:25 - Mar 9 by Leaky |
My son works on a military base servicing oil boilers. I do the same job working in the the private sector. If I could charge the same amount my son's company charges I would only need to work 2 days amonth. I have heard the same stories in the Prison service & NHS. Someone needs to extract a digit from there anus. |
Public sector procurement is bonkers - as your example shows.
On another but related issue - I've never understood why we talk about 'defence spending' rather than outcomes as a measure. It perpetuates the type of waste you describe because ludicrously expensive boiler maintenance etc. will form a significant proportion of spending without any kind of capability (other than working heating) to show for it. [Post edited 9 Mar 22:32]
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| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 23:07 - Mar 9 with 1361 views | Churchman |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 21:27 - Mar 9 by Plums |
Public sector procurement is bonkers - as your example shows.
On another but related issue - I've never understood why we talk about 'defence spending' rather than outcomes as a measure. It perpetuates the type of waste you describe because ludicrously expensive boiler maintenance etc. will form a significant proportion of spending without any kind of capability (other than working heating) to show for it. [Post edited 9 Mar 22:32]
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To be fair, part of the problem with procurement is that third parties will promise the earth and deliver f all. That’s why you need specialist contract and legal bods because private companies act for the shareholder and look to deliver the least for the most profit. Their motivation is that, not providing a service to the public. You need a balance and people with the right expertise to manage this stuff.
All way beyond the likes of my skill levels. There’s no hiding. It’s complex, especially with new stuff. You need teams with people with different skill sets and if a government project uses private sector, which it invariably does, it needs strict control. It’s about finding right people.
The reverse is also true. There are many examples of things that were nearly lost through politics and wrong public sector people muddying the waters. The R101 airship disaster is a good example, as is the loss of a supersonic version of the Harrier. Ridiculous changing requirements and perceived lack of money meant that even the subsonic version was very nearly not built.
It all comes back to politicians. Great examples of how well public, private partnership can work are the Castle Bromwich for the Spitfire, the development specifically for Britain by Lockheed of the Hudson maritime aircraft and the licence build of of the Merlin engine by Packard. Three remarkable stories. | | | |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 12:58 - Mar 10 with 1136 views | Ryorry |
| Francis Maude Mk. 2 on 10:43 - Mar 9 by DJR |
One thing the Civil Service is very good at is flexible working and job shares, which probably explains the relatively high number of women in higher grades in the Civil Service.
The following link indicate that in 2022 47% of Senior Civil Servants were women. I rather doubt any private sector organisation comes anywhere near this figure, and this may in part also explain higher rates of retention in the Civil Service, as does the prospect of the loss of pension.
https://civilservant.org.uk/library/2023-IfG-Sex_of_the_civil_service.pdf |
Staying in for the notoriously good pension is, I imagine, a huge factor - that and job security probably being a major factor in attracting employees in the first place. |  |
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