What effect will Gordon Brown's proposal to cut something like 100,000 civil servant jobs have? I don't see how such a move can produce anything but devastation. Either that or there are an awful lot of people out there being paid for sitting on their backsides doing sod all, all day.

I think that the same principle should apply to the number of MP's we have and the number of councillors we pay.

With power more than likely to be devolved to the regions at a lower level and power being abdicated to the European parliament why on earth do we need so many MP's?

Similarly at a local level, services are being put out to trusts, pfi, schools controlling their own budgets, housing associations taking over housing stock etc all mean that there is less to do and less responsibility at council level. I would argue therefore that each ward does not need 3 councillors.

Bring on the axe. :thumbsup:

When considering the work that civil servants actually do, it helps to picture a pyramid.

At the bottom, the widest edge of the shape are the lowest paid and most put upon civil servants. As you travel up the pyramid, the numbers thin out and the level of actual work becomes inverse to the amout that the persons on those higher levels are paid. When you reach the top you tend to find one very well paid and underworked civil servant who claims responsibility for the hard work of those beneath him whilst publicly supporting the false opinion that they actually do nothing but loaf around on tax-payers money.

That's been my experience of the public sector...

Well I think you're talkign a load of crap. Public sector workers work their arses off and to dismiss them as lazy is insulting to say the least. They are already underpaid and overworked, Brown is, quite frankly, a nob.

I have never worked directly for the civil service, but have worked for private sector companies supporting the civil service, here are my views. This is not aimed at any one dept, it includes MOD/DWP

1. Most depts are over staffed, compared to say a private business.
2. The waste a lot of money on initatives that fail - I can name a few but won't.
3. Very few of the senior managers have ever worked in the real world, these places are for life.
4. When there is a general election, everything stops until they know which party is in power.

Oh and the other point, with these cuts there may be a few less contributors to this forum.:thumbsup:

Yeah - I must admit I was amazed by the figure of 100,000 job cuts.
It seems the Civil Service may now be threatening strike action.

From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3888745.stm

Here a breakdown of the numbers:

Education - 1,960
Health - 720
Transport - 700
ODPM - 400
Home Office - 2,700
Constitutional Affairs - 1,100
Law Officers Dept - 50
Defence - 15,000
Foreign Office - 310
International development - 170
DTI - 1,280
DEFRA - 2,400
DCMS - 30
Work and Pensions - 40,000
Northern Ireland - 130
Chancellor's Depts - 16,850
Cabinet Office - 150
UK Trade and Investment - 200

Nomme

Originally posted by noseyrosie
Well I think you're talkign a load of crap. Public sector workers work their arses off and to dismiss them as lazy is insulting to say the least. They are already underpaid and overworked, Brown is, quite frankly, a nob.

Here, here!

Last time I checked, Gordon Brown was a civil servant himself...but I'm willing to bet his own staff weren't for the chop!

Fire the fat ******** chauffer and make him cycle to work!

And since when has the fact that more and more public money being poured into the private sector's swill-trough been a good thing for the likes of you and me?

More and more tax-payers money being funneled back into the pockets of private industry rather than into the infrastructure of the country. Just sell the lot off and make a quick profit...thanks for that, Mr Brown!

Originally posted by Carmine
Last time I checked, Gordon Brown was a civil servant himself...but I'm willing to bet his own staff weren't for the chop!


You'd lose that bet.

(from earlier post)

"Chancellor's Depts - 16,850"

Nomme

That got typed in while I was typing in my own vitiriol!

I was thinking more of his personal staff, the guys who wipe his bum for him and make his coffee...I'd like to see a more frugal Whitehall, where the ministers make the tea for the visiting foreign bigwigs..."one lump or two, Mr President?"

Can anyone really say they wouldn't like to see Brown and Blair riding to the Commons on a tandem?

Imagine the squabbling over the front seat!

Originally posted by mikey


Oh and the other point, with these cuts there may be a few less contributors to this forum.:thumbsup:

Funny you should say that. I have been shocked over the months by the shame faced way that some members of the forum seem to spend hours and hours of the working week reading and contributing to threads when surely they should be doing their work.

Perhaps theses are the 'big boys' that you refer to Carmine who sit in their offices all day doing nothing of any value at all.

Originally posted by noseyrosie
Well I think you're talkign a load of crap. Public sector workers work their arses off and to dismiss them as lazy is insulting to say the least. They are already underpaid and overworked, Brown is, quite frankly, a nob.

Please read my post again.

You obviously read into it what you wanted and then flew straight off the handle.

Not saying too much and i can only speak for the Project i work on in DWP.....

I am part of a team of 11 who update a system which is used by 90,000 staff in Jobcentres, which have 7 million people through there doors per year. This system is updated twice a year and speaking for the 3 and a half years i havfe been on this project, on time every time.

This thread further up describes it well where the higher up you go with the CC the less people do. They get themselves a nice pay rise and good performance marking and them pull the ****** ladder up.

Originally posted by johnjo
which is used by 90,000 staff in Jobcentres.

:wow: this is one small dept of the civil service, that is bigger than some of the largest UK PLC's.


Originally posted by johnjo
speaking for the 3 and a half years i have been on this project, on time every time.



Probably because its outscourced to some private firm like
EDS
Syntegra
ICL
Computacenter

[QUOTE]Originally posted by noseyrosie
[B

My partner has worked for the civil service for the last 18 months after 15 years in the private sector. She's looking for another job because she's bored out of her skull. The whole dept is over-staffed and I'm told that this is the same throughout the workplace.
I come across councils as part of my job. Some of the people I come across are good, others I wouldn't pay in washers.
It still holds true that people in the civil service can make a career out of attending meetings or pass 40 years of their life by hiding in the corner of an office. They used to be called "deadwood" when I worked for a public company.
Rant over .....

i've just moved onto a government project that we've just won.
The first thing i noticed is that the general attitude of the tupe'd staff (not actuall government mind, just infected I think), is very much a clock watching, buck passing attitude.

I think this comes from the client (the government) and the number of staff who originally worked there.

I've never seen one of our normal projects empty at 5:30, nor often even at 8. And i've rarely been the first in at 7:45, but I am everytime now!

Originally posted by noseyrosie
Well I think you're talkign a load of crap. Public sector workers work their arses off and to dismiss them as lazy is insulting to say the least. They are already underpaid and overworked, Brown is, quite frankly, a nob.

It depends on which area of the public sector you are talking about. There are thousands of different jobs.

I know two people - one who works for pensions who works their backside off for rubbish pay, and one who works at the Manpower building at Moorfoot who does sod all and gets frequent pay rises and promotion to boot.

A few years back I got a graduate job at what is now called the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I worked there for three years but had to leave before I lost the will to live. There was plenty of work to do but most of it seemed worthless to me. I spent ages on a consultation exercise on some inane question about whether indictment sheets should be altered slightly. Had we costed it it would have come to £1000s. Utterly pointless.

Yes, but it takes them a hell of a long time! a bit like dial up really!!!:D