Friday 23 July 2021

Government poorly served by the civil service

Apologies for the lack of posts from me this month, should improve a bit now. Real world work has been very busy which I guess is a good thing overall.

Watching the unfolding PR disaster of the Government this week has been quite something. I really am lost as to how nearly 18 months into the pandemic, the Government still can never seem to get ahead of its own agenda. 

Today they released the list of occupations where the self-isolation rules won't apply. How is it possible they had not planned for this a week or two ago? A lot of blame is going on Boris and the Tories for this, rightly so as the buck stops with them.

However, what the hell is the civil service up to? Why are the Ministers constantly in a flux of changing medical and governmental advice. It is one thing to accuse the Tories of lacking consistent messaging, which they surely do, but the lack of preparation and foresight sits firmly on the civil service. 

They are the ones enacting the policies of the Government and supposedly considering all the pitfalls and opportunities. Very little of this seems to be going on. As a taxpayer the value for money here is really poor. 

Dealing with a pandemic is a challenge, but the strategy has been right for a long time now after the initial few months of screw ups. It is the delivery which is so poor and the Government should ask questions of the competence of its senior advisors....maybe Dom was right....

34 comments:

djm said...

Shurely not unrelated to 40+ years to outsourcing the decision making process to colleagues in Bruxxles ?

dearieme said...

The virus is becoming/has become endemic.

Therefore pings, and mass test and trace (I gather they are different systems) are probably quite pointless, even if they were well done.

How even a distracted pol can't see this beats me.

Nick Drew said...

I can only join the chorus

just how stupid (or dumb-insolent) are these people?

CJ Nerd said...

I've long been of the opinion that recruiting Oxbridge classicists has been a disaster.

I'd like to see the Civil Service fast track require, at the very least, an A or A* at A level in a STEM subject.

That would help filter out woolly thinkers.

andrew said...


1
They (both sides) have been hollowing out the civil service to the large consultancies since the mid-80s

Basically too many of the brightest went to work for the large consultancies
Govt distrust (both sides) of the civil service really is not a positive for morale

Consultancies are not there for the good of the country, they are there to deliver a defined contract and then the institutional knowledge gained walks off to the next contract.

Let that simmer for 30 years.

2
I think a lot of the downsides have been _hidden_ until now by EU membership:
- we have had a habit of cutting and pasting a fair amount of legislation from what the EU sent us
-if something went wrong we could always blame the EU (rightly or wrongly)

Now there is no swot sitting beside you to copy from and no one else to blame.

... so IMO the reason the civil service is serving the govt poorly is because successive (but to be fair mostly con) govts see the civil service as a problem to be solved, sometimes by getting rid of it.

What did these bright people thing would happen in the long term, isnt that what PPE is suppose to teach you to think about?


CityUnslicker said...

"Organisations that make up the Civil Service include central government departments, their agencies, and crown non- departmental government bodies (NDPBs). The Civil Service headcount increased by 10,930 in the year to March 2020 and stands at 456,410."

and this year...


"As of the end of March 2021, there were 468,130 full-time equivalent (FTE) civil servants. This is just over 27,000 (6.1%) more than in the previous quarter. Excluding temporary Census field staff, there were 453,590 civil servants, an increase of around 12,760 (2.9%)."



Where are these cuts your talk about? I think half a million odd people should be enough to get a grip. In 2009, pre-austerity the civil service was 490,000.

Most of the PR mistakes are stuff I would get sorted with a team of 3.

DJK said...

Both Andrew and CU can be right: the civil service has help growing in absolute terms, but it has been hollowed of talent at the upper levels. In fact greater numbers --- and on Covid-19 there seem to be a lot of people within government offering advice --- just allows any responsibility to be shrugged off, as the decision making process becomes more cumbersome.

Sobers said...

The failure of the Civil Service is not accidental, especially when its operating under a Conservative Government. The Civil Service (as with the State sector as a whole) does not vote Conservative. Ergo its not going to bust itself to solve problems for a Conservative Government. Indeed making a Conservative Government look bad is exactly what it wants.

We have a permanent Leftist government in place now, in the form of the entire State apparatus, that we the electorate cannot remove. When there is a Leftist government it can do as it likes and advance Leftism unchecked, indeed with encouragement from above. When there is a non-Leftist government (note we haven't had a Rightist one for 25 years) it can a) defeat any attempts to implement policies it does not like, and b) still attempt to impose Leftism by the back door. Sometime it gets called on (b) and the next 'progressive' step is foiled, but only for a period of time. Its an ever Leftwards ratchet, all they have to do is sit and wait.

E-K said...

Quite deliberate and this is lockdown in any other name.

It is here permanently as are masks - no matter how good the vaccine. The idea is to force businesses to close themselves and to abrogate the government of responsibility to provide furlough.

If you don't believe there is a central global coordination of this then you should now. I've never been a conspiracy theorist until now but much of our way of life is gone for good and certainly flying for the masses.

PS, Why are soldiers considered to be Ping Free and not others ?

Matt said...

@ DJK

This but it has been hollowed of talent at the upper levels assumes there was talent at the top in the first place.

Any group of pricks who described themselves as "The Association of First Division Civil Servants" already are more naval gazing and self-serving than the country needs.

Then add the leftist woke agenda and there is no hope.

andrew said...

CU, depends on the timeframe

pic of Civil Servant Nos over the long term

I mentioned since the 80s - and am correct
You mentioned over the last year - and are correct

I would say the number employed is open to 'interpretation' as some jobs are now outsourced.

If you included the number of people employed indirectly, and it was broken down by department, that graph might have told an interesting story.

All things being equal, the number of civil servants would grow as the number of people living in the UK has grown ~56m in 1980 to ~68m now (~20% more) and the scope of what the govt does feels like it has grown.

But the number _appears_ to have fallen.
So, yes, over time 1980 - 2021, 'hollowed out' may be a bit dramatic but about 30% fewer civil servants for about a 20% larger population is not describable as growth.

These are very complex organisations that rely on 'on the ground' knowledge and 'institutional memory' so simply cannot be steered instantly in a different direction.
Unless we are ok with $bad_things_happening
Viz the abortive outsourcing of the probation service.

Some of my best friends are PPE grads (well ok one). What we seem to suffer from is managerialism - the idea you can run anything if you are a manager crossed with 'strong man syndrome' - drugs czars, nhs czars, cone czars. These things work great for a short time on a limited scope - like vaccine delivery.
This approach will not work well for reforming planning policy for the next 25 - 30 years.



andrew said...

Or this link

https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/civil-service-staff-numbers-q2-2016-how-big-whitehall-it-prepares-brexit

might work

dearieme said...

@ C J Nerd: but then Ferguson, the Astrologer Royal, would qualify to be a civil servant - a man with a decades-long record of being wrong about everything.

Elby the Beserk said...

CJ Nerd said...
I've long been of the opinion that recruiting Oxbridge classicists has been a disaster.

I'd like to see the Civil Service fast track require, at the very least, an A or A* at A level in a STEM subject.

That would help filter out woolly thinkers.
2:06 pm
===============================================================

I'd say those days are over a long time ago - Oxbridge no longer produces such; when it did, such were employed because the true study of classics promoted rational rigorous thinking. Quite clearly, that is nor longer happening...

Elby the Beserk said...

@Cityunslicker 3:08am

Digby-wotsisname, who was in Brown's "Cabinet of all the Clowns" till leaving in despair noted that you could sack half the Civil Service and they would still have more than enough slack to do the work tasked with.

I'm sure he's right. The public is collapsing before our eyes; I applied for the tax refund on my annual drawdown - usually takes about a month; three months on "they can't find my records" (really). I've been paying tax and NI since 1968. And they've lost my records. Note, this occurred after I wrote to them, enclosing copies of HMRC letters to me WITH ALL MY DETAILS.

Am I now a non-person?

Meanwhile, DVLA is taking three months to renew a driving licence. Three months to print a plastic card and put it in the mail.

Taking the piss, one might say. I do.

Elby the Beserk said...

Erratum

"For "public" read "public sector"...

I should also have added - the NHS is collapsing before out eyes.

jim said...

Rubbish.

If you try to declare 2+2=7 you will have a difficulty and no civil administration can make it otherwise. The Civil Service is a pyramid with say a dozen who matter at the top. The rest do as they are told. Replace the top dozen and voila - but 2+2 still does not equal 7. You have to have sane doable goals - we don't have any.

I aver the Civil Service is not the main problem. Reforming the Civil Service is merely another displacement activity - like Brexit. The UK suffers from being an over mature democracy, like a ship that has too many barnacles. You don't get rid of the crew - you careen the ship and start scraping. Then you leave useless passengers on a desert island and sail away. Your definition of useless may be different to mine.

As things stand Boris is lumbered with Brexit, has no way of delivering Green or electric cars or hydrogen fuels or houses or new industries. He is in a tight corner. His only hope is to kick the can down the road a bit longer and hope something will turn up. Eventually Boris will recognise he is doing no good, he will resign and go and make some money. As for a replacement - someone equally useless and unable to chop our Gordian knot will be found.

lilith said...

Well, from the number of times Theresa May had to row back announcements I concluded that her civil servants were taking the piss out of her...letting her announce ridiculous and unworkable policies only to have to retract them 24 hrs or so later.

How's this for Kafkaesque: to renew my driving licence without a current British passport I would have to produce my father's original naturalisation certificate from 1973....old passports, paper counterparts or the DVLA's own records are not adequate. And all original documents are sent and returned at your own risk and if you want them sent back recorded delivery that's up to you. I haven't seen my Dad's naturalisation certification since the seventies, but I'm sure the old fella has it tucked away somewhere....

Bill Quango MP said...

The DVLA have managed to achieve the public sector Holy Grail. They are at present on strike, and on furlough, simultaneously.

Bill Quango MP said...

Lilith.
- the instruction given by DVLA for original documents is not correct either. Recorded delivery is not a tracked service. All it does is allow the DVLA to see if you received the documents back, or if they were lost in transit. It cannot be used to locate them.


Don Cox said...

According to the biography by L T C Rolt, Isambard Kingdom Brunel had a very low opinion of the British Civil Service in his day. The introduction of examinations, as in China, was supposed to improve the quality of civil servants.

Probably the remorseless operation of Parkinson's Law has undone any good that reform may have done.

Don Cox

lilith said...

Weirdly, it was very, very easy to renew my British passport, online and without any naturalisation certificates....I didn't even have to trouble anyone to sign the back of a photo.....

lilith said...

Bill, there was no way I was sending precious original docs to the DVLA! Their leaflet suggested they had no interest in the safety of such documents or ensuring their return...

E-K said...

I missed Sobers' comment at 3.57.

That's a plus 1000 from me !

E-K said...

I had a negative test today.

At no point did I think "OMG. I'm gonna die !!!!

Wifey had one two weeks ago and it was "Yayyy ! SIX days off !!!"

And I know people who are going around deliberately getting themselves ping'd by travelling as far and wide as they can with their phones on.

People simply don't put a cotton mask on and get a take-away in an airborne ebola crisis.

The British (so called) are being raped of their freedoms because they deserve to be.

E-K said...

The country (in fact - the West) has been take over by zero-Covid zealots and I'm prepared to discuss this with Nick at our next meeting.

(over a few beers !)

APL said...

"I really am lost as to how nearly 18 months into the pandemic, the Government still can never seem to get ahead of its own agenda."

I hate the Tory party, but this is not their agenda.

Agenda 21 is the agenda

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf

The Tories are just being dragged along. They are culpable, because they are not opposing it.

APL said...

And the NHS 'app',

ANYONE who uses the NHS app, is a moron.

What a useful Police State tool. You are conditioned to self isolate and lock yourself away ( no crime ) .... for nothing.

And people are swallowing it hook line and sinker.

Morons.

Elby the Beserk said...

Govt gateway a hoot. I can't sign on as I don't have a current passport or a NI driving licence. They say a P6O will do, but when you click on the next page, using a P60 is not an option. So this taxpayer is not allowed so log into a service he funds.

FUBAR doesn't even begin to describe the shitstorm descending on us.

Mind, how about a BONFIRE OF THE QUANGOS as a start? That's always worked well before(cf. QE, Lockdown, all remedies which work SO well they have to be used again and again).

Elby the Beserk said...

APL said...
"I really am lost as to how nearly 18 months into the pandemic, the Government still can never seem to get ahead of its own agenda."

I hate the Tory party, but this is not their agenda.

Agenda 21 is the agenda

https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/Agenda21.pdf

The Tories are just being dragged along. They are culpable, because they are not opposing it.

10:02 am
=====================================================

Agenda 30 now - do keep up ;-)

https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/what-is-the-united-nations-agenda-30-and-how-does-it-impact-you/

andrew said...

Ek my phone measures heartrate and sp02
I understand the new apple phones will be able to work out even more like your blood alhohol level and the next generation of nhs apps will be kept in step
... so that will be ×2× beers.
:)

Elby the Beserk said...

andrew said...
Ek my phone measures heartrate and sp02
I understand the new apple phones will be able to work out even more like your blood alhohol level and the next generation of nhs apps will be kept in step
... so that will be ×2× beers.
:)
12:19 pm
============================

All the more reason to say out loud - Get thee behind me, Smartphone.

The smart chap of the future - I lend myself as an example - has a brick phone. In my case, my trusty Nokia 2600.

Sobers said...

"The smart chap of the future - I lend myself as an example - has a brick phone. In my case, my trusty Nokia 2600."

Samsung B2100 here.

'NHS app? Can't get it on my phone mate.'

Anonymous said...

Blackberry passport.

Great phone, solid as a brick and nearly as heavy.

Reads bar codes, but steadfastly refuses to pull up the associated online menu, just give me a paper menu.