The Tories prime their shake-up of the civil service

Vulture

If the vulpine traitor Maude is supervising the Tories' preparations for power then we are in deeper doodie than we thought. The man is an EU-loving federast and expenses home swapper who nearly succeeded in foisting Michael Portaloo on to us as party leader. Both men made the Bercow-like jump from ultra-Thatcherism to
Bliar-lite pseudo-Toryism without blinking.

Seeing his corrupt features on this story quite put me off my elevenses, just as seeing Bliar put me off my breakfast. Before lunch can you put up a pic of a politician who is not a crook? NO, I guess that is too much to ask.

John Ware

The idea of putting civil servants on contracts is fine in theory but ignores a basic reality. Who would want to enter a career where there is no long-term job security and no alternative employer if you lose your job?

That is totally different from the private sector (where I work as a contractor). If you lose your job with one employer, there are plenty of others to whom you can offer your services. If you lose your job with the UK Government, you can't just hop off and work for the French or German Government.

I think these plans will founder on that basic problem.

DB

John Ware, what planet are you on? Do you think the civil service is stuffed with people who have degrees in "Government" and possess no transferable skill?

While I agree that the current shambles makes it look like the whole CS doesn't have two transferable skills to rub together, some fear of poor performance is entirely warranted and needed to get productivity up in government. Why should only the pirvate sector feel any pain? [just look at where the job losses have come from during the recession; hint- not from the CS].

Just remember, no reward for failure. Unless you're a labour politician or supporter....

John Ware

DB - I live on Planet Earth and indeed worked in Government for 8 years. Of course civil servants have many theoretically transferable skills, just as lawyers, doctors and telecoms managers do. But that is a long way from saying that there is a wealth of jobs to which sacked civil servants could easily transfer.

John Ware

DB - I live on Planet Earth. In fact I worked in Govt for 8 years so know something about this.

Of course civil servants have skills which are theoretically transferable, just as doctors, solicitors or telecoms managers have. But that is a long way from saying that it would be easy for a sacked civil servant to transfer to a different profession. Some civil servants do, sure, but there are not a wealth of opportunities.

Frank P

Vulture (11.25am)

My thoughts exactly!

I think we have to now accept that this magazine has been routed by the 'enemy within' and that we are in fact now the trolls around here. If you need further proof read Korski's more recent post. It defies cogent commentary. What is that twat doing writing for this magazine? Can anyone weigh Andrew Neil up? Is Korski Scottish or something? I despair!

Frank P

Vulture (11.37am)

My thoughts exactly - every word. Do we perhaps have to accept that this magazine, once a bastion of cogent 'small c' conservatism has now been comprehensively routed by the 'enemy within' like the rest of the MSM. If you need a further indicator read the next post by Korski. What is Andrew Neil up to? Is Korski's real name McCorkery or something. His piece defies a rational response without resorting to scatology even beyond my considerable lexicon of foul oaths. I think that the regular stalwarts of the commentariat on these blogs must now consider themselves to be the trolls.

Frank P

Vulture

My apologies for the double post, but the first effort was apparently rejected by the software according to a pop up I received. So I posted again, as I could not remember exactly what I had written the first time it is an emended version. Make up your own mind which is the worse :-)

Frank P

btw the automatic posting facility is sporadic and at times so slow that posts appear out of chronological sequence, hence folks are repeating points that have already been made, which they wouldn't have done had the software been efficient. Perhaps Simon Brock should be told, Peter.

DB

John Ware: so your fundamental premise is that they should not be made redundant because there are no jobs for the poor dears because they are essentially unemployable; and your solution to "lack of jobs"/"unemployability" is just to keep them employed at the expense of others??

Great plan, lets just employ the whole country. That way no-one has to ever face redundancy and retraining and our super-efficient nationalised state will be much more competetive on the world state without the drain of unemployment.

Tiberius

Francis Maude was one of the first in the Tory party to recognize that if it was ever to govern again, it had to be able to communicate with the electorate that Britain actually has, rather than the one many wish it had.

If the rest of the party in 2001 had taken its collective cork from up its backside, and elected Portillo as leader, Labour may not have won the 2005 GE (Blair was deeply unpopular because of the Iraq war).

I am well aware that Portillo's appetite for the fight that leadership would have given him has since come under question. But the fact that the party elected Cameron in 2005, and that he's taken the party to a polling of over 40%, shows it was handing government to Labour on a plate for too many years.

The obstinacy of many Tories, many of the old school, is a contributory factor in Labour having a virtual free hand to mould the country into its own twisted image. The immigration scandal is only one such issue.

A lot of contributors on here don't like the Tory modernization (or whatever one might want to call it), but without it the country wouldn't even have a chance of restitution because we'd either be guaranteed another Labour majority, or a coalition between them and the LibDems.

Any Colour but Brown

John Ware, if civil servants are not fit for the private sector, what makes them fit for the public one?
It seems to me that, if a civil servant can't get a job in the private sector, then he's not been giving (or going to give) much to the public one.

John Ware

DB - no that is obviously not my premise if you read what I say. Civil servants do tend to be quite intelligent, unlike you it appears

strapworld

Tiberius. It is not that we do not like the conservative modernisation agenda.

It is, bluntly, we do not like crooks who have profitted from the taxpayer and have, so far, paid nowt back nor had the good grace to resign!

Maude is an absolute disgrace.

DB

John Ware: decending to personal attacks? That must be the weakness of your argument showing through. If the job is not required, it should not exist; why should taxes be spent to maintain non-jobs? Who cares if it might be difficult for them to find new work; welcome to the real world of near zero job security, employment by continual merit rather than entrenchement and constant training and improvement. Equally who's saying that they wold have to change profession? Only, apparently, your narrow horizons- is that their choice in your world? Work for government or "change profession"? How feeble.....

John Ware

Any Colour but Brown - I certainly didn't say or believe that they are "not fit" for the private sector. My point is that being a civil servant in Whitehall is a profession, with its own specific skills, knowledge and focus.

But it is a profession with a single major employer. So if that employer increases job insecurity, they (probably) reduce the attractiveness of the profession and therefore the quality of the entrants.

TomTom

The Permanent Secretary should be accountable to Select Committees in both Houses and subject to suspension and removal on recommendation of both Committees acting in unison

In2minds

John Ware – Good try, still don't believe you though.

2trueblue

What on earth is wrong with making people accountable, where ever, or whom ever they work for? This is the real world that we inhabit, lets all be in it. I know that we have had 12yrs+ where no one seems to be accountable, and all that is required is that you keep announcing initiatives and reeling off things that sound like tractor statistics, but no one checks on delivery. There has to be change.

Steve Tierney

@John Ware

You lost this debate pretty badly, John. Cut your losses, your argument's weakness became apparent fairly quickly.

48 Crash

From personal experience (Mrs C is a senior civil servant) I would say that the Service are generally competent, and that most things that go wrong are due to the idiocies of the Ministers and their craven desire to get re-elected, whcih leads to cheap attention-grabbing stunts - such as Come-Into-The-Garden's proposals to sack them for his and his colleagues' decisions.

But I am biased, of course.

David Short

Perhaps no Permanent Secretary has been fired for 70 years because they were all superb at their job? Until New Labour came in, all high level civil servants were selected on the basis of intense ability and intelligence and via competitive examinations.