Major Brexit victory - Civil Service to be slashed

[Borchester]

Years ago I decided to be a brickie.

Well, bugger that for a game of soldiers. There weren't any courses as such. Or Polish pianos either. Just other brickies who who point to sacks of cement and sand and who said tell you what, keep up going in mud and such and we will let you lay a few bricks.

I lasted a week.

It was bloody hard graft. Happily, these days they have cement mixers and little lifts that carry materials to the next level. Which makes life easier.

And requires less people.

So despite all the bollocks about I am a grafter mate but everyone else is a lazy bastard especially those pen pushing civil servants who we don't need unless we want hospitals and schools and all the rest, we really require someone to create lots of non jobs to keep the country off the dole queues.

[Streetwalker]

Perhaps they start at 9am 😉

Tee off at 9am more like 

[johnofgwent]

The UK workforce currently totals around 32.5 million, of which ...
... around 17.6% (5.7 million) work in the public sector, of which ...
... only around 1.6% (508 thousand - around 8.9% of public servants) are in the civil service.

The number employed by the civil service is now 23% higher than its minimum in 2016, but still 11% down on its most recent peak in 2005. 
https://www.civilservant.org.uk/information-numbers.html

Margaret Thatcher cut the size of the civil service from 732,000 to 594,000 over her first seven years in office. As it's taken all those years since she left power to shed another 86,000, I doubt reducing the headcount by another 91,000 will be easily done. Or cheap...

What you overlook is the number of ways the state has found to intrude into our lives since the mid 90s. 

[Nick]

The LBC guy was standing outside one Whitehall office this morning counting the civil servants as they went in . He had it under good authority that normally 260 people worked there . By 8.30 the count was ........2

Perhaps they start at 9am 😉 

[T00ts]

Living close-ish to GCHQ I have a lot of workers there in my circle. They are obviously not allowed to speak about what they do in fact some have trouble even admitting that they work there but I have got the impression over the years that there is a constant surplus of personnel for the simple reason that if everything was to kick off they wouldn't have time to recruit and it would be all hands to it. Perhaps now is an example of that need.

I have no problem with that as it seems sensible, what I do loathe is that those in the offices are actually found to be no longer non political and even work against government policies that they don't like for whatever reason. Rumours of this in Whitehall have been circulating for a long time so I think it must have some truth. Just recently comments were made about the Australian(?) trade deal where Whitehall mandarins were found to be holding things up presumably  because they wish Brexit to fail - and that comment came from Australia. It just makes a mockery of the electorate.

[Barry]

A close family member is a civil servant working in a crime related sector. For the last 2 years he has been working from home, except an occasional day when ha has had to attend an office in London. When I see him at his house, he is usually watching TV, cricket, or if his kids are home, kids programs. I ask him if he had any work and most days the answer has been that they didn't find any work.
Lately, he has had a sideways move in the CS and the story is similar. He told me he was just doing some monotonous tedious work of either renaming files on a computer, or similar menial tasks. This is a staff member with years of experience in legal matters and holding two degrees from London universities.
I know that one case and one story does not mean all are the same. Another close family member has a job in the CS and has been pretty busy from home throughout the pandemic.
From the numbers stated by PP it seems that they are not terribly high, however there does seem a reluctance in government to get rid of staff that are no longer necessary or performing, whereas in the private sector, that attitude would mean no profit and the business failing.

[Streetwalker]

Or as I alluded to, it's designed to trigger a mass return to work. I know JRM has just compiled some data on who is or isn't in the office.

The LBC guy was standing outside one Whitehall office this morning counting the civil servants as they went in . He had it under good authority that normally 260 people worked there . By 8.30 the count was ........2

[Nick]

The UK workforce currently totals around 32.5 million, of which ...
... around 17.6% (5.7 million) work in the public sector, of which ...
... only around 1.6% (508 thousand - around 8.9% of public servants) are in the civil service.

The number employed by the civil service is now 23% higher than its minimum in 2016, but still 11% down on its most recent peak in 2005. 
https://www.civilservant.org.uk/information-numbers.html

Margaret Thatcher cut the size of the civil service from 732,000 to 594,000 over her first seven years in office. As it's taken all those years since she left power to shed another 86,000, I doubt reducing the headcount by another 91,000 will be easily done. Or cheap...

Or as I alluded to, it's designed to trigger a mass return to work. I know JRM has just compiled some data on who is or isn't in the office. 

[patman post]

The UK workforce currently totals around 32.5 million, of which ...
... around 17.6% (5.7 million) work in the public sector, of which ...
... only around 1.6% (508 thousand - around 8.9% of public servants) are in the civil service.

The number employed by the civil service is now 23% higher than its minimum in 2016, but still 11% down on its most recent peak in 2005.  
https://www.civilservant.org.uk/information-numbers.html

Margaret Thatcher cut the size of the civil service from 732,000 to 594,000 over her first seven years in office. As it's taken all those years since she left power to shed another 86,000, I doubt reducing the headcount by another 91,000 will be easily done. Or cheap...

[johnofgwent]

The Civil Service is to be slashed by one fifth to combat the growing cost of living crisis.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10811331/Bloodbath-civil-service-91-000-jobs-axed-shake-save-3-5bn.html

As T00ts correctly said, most of this country's problems begin and end at Whitehall. We can only hope that Jacob Rees Mogg will make short work of those people who are still resisting the will of 17.4 million people.



The people who voted against this country in 2016 won't like this one bit.

I think it's important you understand exactly what you are celebrating.

The Ministry of Justice for example

It took two years for the murderer of my daughter's neighbour to come to court. The case was ready after barely more than a year. The rest of the time was a couple of months of delaying tactics used by the defence and about eight months of pointless bullshittery in the creation of reports and blatherings of woke Wankspangles as to why we should take pity on a poor lonely cokehead instead of dragging him outside and cutting bits off him with a freezer knife, then gutting him like a fish while still alive and then setting fire to him before he dies, which is pretty much what he did to his victim.

The cutbacks you applaud will increase that time to three years. The judges will be put on a three day week on full pay of course, the woke Wankspangles will still be paid to dream up ever more ridiculous reasons why the guilty should be released unpunished, the innocent on remand will be denied their liberty for longer and the court buikdings will be left unused. Because the only people being chucked on the dole are the ones that actually do the useful work.

And as for the Tw** in the hat whingeing that the civil service need to get back to the office and leaving "sorry you were out when I called" notes it is a fact that unless the aim is to ensure the evidence of bribery never leaves a secure building, the planning application for your neighbours garage does NOT need the secure handling of the documents proving the fact we need the yanks permission to nuke someone.

Many years ago now a prize prick wrote two letters to Freelance Informer and Computer Contractor celebrating Gordon Browns change to corporate share taxation.

The wanker had no idea he'd been screwed. I wrote in to both magazines saying I wondered if I'd heard the same budget as points a,b and c which on the face of it were good for the taxpayer, were countered by p, q and r which doubled the tax grab and screwed pension growth now and forever.

It gave me no pleasure to see John Samson, the editor of one, and Roger Sinclair (?) the tax agony uncle on the other mention my letters and declare I had indeed correctly assessed the situation and those unable to take action were going to suffer pain in the wallet for a long time....

Both men agreed the earlier contributor to their respective publications had totally failed to grasp the true significance of treasury action.

I can't help thinking you remind me of that idiot.

A lot

[Nick]

One of those headlines that will make little difference to anyone but those being shown the door . Many  will be shuffled from departments that are top heavy to those that need to fill the many vacancies currently advertised . Probably be covered with early retirements , voluntary redundacies ect .

Be more of a nice break soaking up the sun while thinking what to do with the pension than a bloodbath

Bet those empty offices and desks will be bursting at the seems come Monday morning after this announcement. 

[Streetwalker]

Passport Office to hire 700 additional members of staff to combat backlog ahead of summer holiday season, minister confirms | Politics News | Sky News

Thats the spirit , just  90,300 to go 

[Streetwalker]

One of those headlines that will make little difference to anyone but those being shown the door . Many  will be shuffled from departments that are top heavy to those that need to fill the many vacancies currently advertised . Probably be covered with early retirements , voluntary redundacies ect .

Be more of a nice break soaking up the sun while thinking what to do with the pension than a bloodbath 

[HallowedBrexit]

The Civil Service is to be slashed by one fifth to combat the growing cost of living crisis.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10811331/Bloodbath-civil-service-91-000-jobs-axed-shake-save-3-5bn.html

As T00ts correctly said, most of this country's problems begin and end at Whitehall. We can only hope that Jacob Rees Mogg will make short work of those people who are still resisting the will of 17.4 million people.

   

The people who voted against this country in 2016 won't like this one bit.