[News] Civil Service jobs

[dsr-burnley]

Government at clueless. In a job I just left we had a project with one of the main departments on a contract worth about £20bn over 8-12 years. Nothing has been delivered, project has been ‘reset’ twice - and the government let the ‘new’ supplier takeover the incumbent - so now the same supplier has very little motivation to get anything moving as it’s earning to build a new thing and also keep the old one running for longer via contract extensions.

Less civil servants means they’ll get taken for a for a ride by private sector contractors more than they are now.

I doubt that. If you have an ineffective committee of 50 people, you don't improve it by making it a committee of 100. You improve it by getting rid of the 40 with least to contribute.

The people with supposedly routine jobs like tax helpliners and passport issuers might be missed, as in deed they are being missed when they are working from home. But the useless ineffective people in charge of failed £20bn contracts - either they get sacked, which can only improve things, or they don't, which means it will be same as. If the boss is useless, you won't make it work by giving him more underlings.

 

[The Clamp]

I doubt that. If you have an ineffective committee of 50 people, you don't improve it by making it a committee of 100. You improve it by getting rid of the 40 with least to contribute.

The people with supposedly routine jobs like tax helpliners and passport issuers might be missed, as in deed they are being missed when they are working from home. But the useless ineffective people in charge of failed £20bn contracts - either they get sacked, which can only improve things, or they don't, which means it will be same as. If the boss is useless, you won't make it work by giving him more underlings.

Unfortunately we have to wait to vote out the ineffective people in charge of £20bn contracts.

 

[beorhthelm]

Government at clueless. In a job I just left we had a project with one of the main departments on a contract worth about £20bn over 8-12 years. Nothing has been delivered, project has been ‘reset’ twice - and the government let the ‘new’ supplier takeover the incumbent - so now the same supplier has very little motivation to get anything moving as it’s earning to build a new thing and also keep the old one running for longer via contract extensions.

Less civil servants means they’ll get taken for a for a ride by private sector contractors more than they are now.

its the senior civil servants in government departments that specify and manage delivery of contracts, and its probably not either in their interests or in their power to make something efficient. if indeed they even understand were the problems lie and how they would be done better. cue a long process of consultations and analysis, which involves more staff with increasingly less interest/power.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Unfortunately we have to wait to vote out the ineffective people in charge of £20bn contracts.

If the civil service is incompetent, it will make no difference which politician is nominally in charge. It may be the politician's job to sign the £20bn contract, but it's not the politician's job to do the admin work involved. The politician's job is policy.

Here's a specific example. My brother is hoping to house 3 Ukrainian refugees. They are all in Poland at present, and have been for several weeks, but only two of them have passports. The other needs a piece of paper from the UK Home Office in Warsaw. She has already travelled to Warsaw for the interview and is now just waiting for the piece of paper.

The Home Office cannot find a way to get that pepper to her. She is sitting in a refugee camp in Poland waiting for the Home Office to fill in that bit of paper. It is beyond their wit to fax it or email it, it is perhaps even beyond their wit to fill it in. There is no question about this piece of paper serving any practical purpose in defending the realm, it's only practical result is to ensure this particular refugee stops in Poland rather than coming here.

It is not the Minister's job to fill in this bit of paper. (It could perhaps be part of his job to tell the penpushers to stop being ****heads and get the people moving, but that's a slightly different issue.) The Home Office in particular is staffed by imbeciles at the top level, and until that changes (again, Minister's job) there will be no improvement.

 

[Guinness Boy]

If the civil service is incompetent, it will make no difference which politician is nominally in charge. It may be the politician's job to sign the £20bn contract, but it's not the politician's job to do the admin work involved. The politician's job is policy.

Here's a specific example. My brother is hoping to house 3 Ukrainian refugees. They are all in Poland at present, and have been for several weeks, but only two of them have passports. The other needs a piece of paper from the UK Home Office in Warsaw. She has already travelled to Warsaw for the interview and is now just waiting for the piece of paper.

The Home Office cannot find a way to get that pepper to her. She is sitting in a refugee camp in Poland waiting for the Home Office to fill in that bit of paper. It is beyond their wit to fax it or email it, it is perhaps even beyond their wit to fill it in. There is no question about this piece of paper serving any practical purpose in defending the realm, it's only practical result is to ensure this particular refugee stops in Poland rather than coming here.

It is not the Minister's job to fill in this bit of paper. (It could perhaps be part of his job to tell the penpushers to stop being ****heads and get the people moving, but that's a slightly different issue.) The Home Office in particular is staffed by imbeciles at the top level, and until that changes (again, Minister's job) there will be no improvement.

The Tories have been in charge of that department for a good 12 years in various guises. However, I doubt they'll do anything about it because it is their stated policy to make life as difficult as possible for asylum seekers and immigrants in general.

This particular example shows them caught between the rock and hard place of being seen to be tough on young Asian males who they think many in the UK regard with suspicion and Ukrainian families who, it seems, everyone loves. Ease the rules and you might let in the odd economic migrant (God forbid that they might be Islamic and smell differently as well) just to get some helpless Ukrainian families out of Poland.

I wish Patel's parents had lost the "bit of paper".

 

[dsr-burnley]

The Tories have been in charge of that department for a good 12 years in various guises. However, I doubt they'll do anything about it because it is their stated policy to make life as difficult as possible for asylum seekers and immigrants in general.

This particular example shows them caught between the rock and hard place of being seen to be tough on young Asian males who they think many in the UK regard with suspicion and Ukrainian families who, it seems, everyone loves. Ease the rules and you might let in the odd economic migrant (God forbid that they might be Islamic and smell differently as well) just to get some helpless Ukrainian families out of Poland.

I wish Patel's parents had lost the "bit of paper".

Do you think the Home Office's incompetence at deporting criminal immigrants at the end of their sentences, is deliberate Tory policy as well?

I think you sum up the Home Office policy quite well, actually. The government would like to treat Ukrainian migrants as a special case because there is a war on, and the Home Office prefers your approach of "rules are rules" and there can be no special cases.

 

[Frutos]

Do you think the Home Office's incompetence at deporting criminal immigrants at the end of their sentences, is deliberate Tory policy as well?

Are you aware of the fact that the final decision on whether someone is deported or not is very rarely made by the Home Office?

 

[Guinness Boy]

Do you think the Home Office's incompetence at deporting criminal immigrants at the end of their sentences, is deliberate Tory policy as well?

I think you sum up the Home Office policy quite well, actually. The government would like to treat Ukrainian migrants as a special case because there is a war on, and the Home Office prefers your approach of "rules are rules" and there can be no special cases.

Sorry, that makes no sense. You said the Government makes policy. The “rules” are theirs to change.


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