Ease the cost of living crisis by making more people unemployed 🙃

It's all over Twitter so unfortunately you are not dreaming. When Johnson needs a distraction from his breaking his rules ...

I was gobsmacked when I heard this, so more people unemployed and services which are pretty bad anyway will just get worse. Brainless idiot

The civil service took on more than 90,000 extra staff for Covid and to some extent, Brexit. Short term contracts. There is much waste in government departments with too many quangos. Ditto the NHS.

Another headline that takes away focus from the idiot and his crimes.

Anyone seen this?

John Cleese
@JohnCleese
A quite astonishing story on Byline Times by Sam Bright

Dominic Cummings has revealed that Johnson arranged
'bungs'- bribes - to British papers in exchange for
favourable coverage and government advertising

The worst corruption in British history - and unreported of course

You are right Urms. Someone in my family works in the NHS and says she could weep at the waste she sees.

World beating redundancies! Genius.

It plays well to the right wing, The government put about the notion that all civil servants are overpaid, underworked leeches and that they won't be missed.

Many years ago, during some of the Thatcher years, I worked for the (then) DHSS processing benefit claims - I worked very hard, for average pay - harder than I've ever worked in a private company. 🙄

Those cheering the loss of 90,000 jobs might be singing a different tune when the benefits bill rockets upward, and when they are waiting even longer for tax queries, passports, driving licenses etc.

Rees-Mogg said axing would mean people were being used “as efficiently as possible”. Axing people isn't using them efficiently. Providing jobs is. Staff taken on to handle Brexit and pandemic work that is no longer required should be transferred to understaffed departments e.g. DWP and the Home Office to handle pensions and benefits claims and migrant asylum and visa applications.

The House of Lords should be next. Cull the numbers there too.

I was just thinking, well at least he's not as bad as Putin.

Then the word cull appears....

A French firm is responsible in greater part for the passport debacle. I forget the name of it. ‘Tele’ something or other. They employ just shy of half a million people worldwide yet trying to phone through about the passport backlog is nigh on impossible. Some people have literally waited hours on the phone then been cut off. Others say they ring 40 times a week. Time to rescind the French contract as ‘not fit for purpose’ in my opinion. Why do we put up with such incompetence?

Another ridiculous fairytale concocted to fuel culture wars and distract from the governments failings.

Even the words used are full of hot air 'demanded', 'come up with a plan', 'could', 'up to'.

No dates, no facts, no strategy or plan to execute the hair brained idea.

Cowboy builders come up with back of a fag packet schemes which have more credibility and substance.

All three of my children ‘work for the government’. Younger son was taken on at the height of the pandemic but had his contract extended. Fortunately he is about to start a new job outside of the Civil Service so won’t have to suffer the indignity of losing his job. None of this makes sense, does it? Another pile of people to be added to the unemployment figures.

Probably all hot air anyway. You can bet a pound to a penny it won’t happen. Just like the ‘flights to Rwanda’. Sound bites that will be forgotten but sound tough and meaningful at the time.

The initial passport application has to go through our passport office. It's then passed on to actually produce the passport itself.

The long delays in phone contact is from the UK office not answering them, so the delays are here.

Agree Urms.
Then look at local and county councils.
There are government departments where some people are working their pants off for little reward. DWP is one of them. There are others where staff do very little, are a huge overhead but are revered because their Head if Service is a good blagger.
I worked in Adult Education for years, the last 5 for a CC. Our manager was very good at pulling in funding. Funding that was wasted on buying classroom furniture when we didn’t have a classroom, laptops for students, when we didn’t have the students, iPads because they were easier to hand out in class, despite all the above. When I calculated how much it had cost per student on one programme it had run into thousands of pounds (for a 6 month course) with negligible results. This funding came from the ESFA and instead of withdrawing it after the first year when it was obvious that the targets wouldn’t be met, we were allocated more funding for 3 years. But my manager is a good blagger and reels out the couple of students who have glowing reports of their course and how much it has changed their lives. I frequently worked on my days off and rarely took my time off in lieu. There were others in our team who were on a managerial level, who didn’t have any staff and had airy fairy roles with no tangible reason to be employed in the team, other than the Head of Service liked them.

Urmstongran

The civil service took on more than 90,000 extra staff for Covid and to some extent, Brexit. Short term contracts. There is much waste in government departments with too many quangos. Ditto the NHS.

And your evidence for this is?

You are clearly not aware that the majority of temporary civil service contracts relating to COVID have already ended, and the remainder will do so later this year. They are not part of the cull announced today.

As for Brexit, some of those who were employed temporarily are still there because there are so many remaining issues to be resolved. Don’t hold your breath for those contracts to end any time soon. The majority, however, are permanently employed to deal with the mountain of red tape Brexit has created. This government can’t let them go, unless they want to make the consequences of Brexit even worse, and even more visible.

DiamondLily

The initial passport application has to go through our passport office. It's then passed on to actually produce the passport itself.

The long delays in phone contact is from the UK office not answering them, so the delays are here.

WFH probably DiamondLily. It’s ‘not working’ (like renewal of driving licences) if the system doesn’t produce the necessary. Honestly we do seem to pay out a lot of money for shoddy ‘service’ these days.

I’ve just worked out the level of investment per person if the £3.5bn savings figure is right: it’s £53.

nandad you do realise that DWP staff are quite likely to be axed? And that council staff - whether county, unitary or district - are not civil servants?

“We do seem to pay out a lot of money for ‘shoddy’ service these days.”

I wonder how much it cost to take the PM and ministers to Stoke for their away day meeting?

Shoddy service should be tackled from the top down.

Lido

Another ridiculous fairytale concocted to fuel culture wars and distract from the governments failings.

Even the words used are full of hot air 'demanded', 'come up with a plan', 'could', 'up to'.

No dates, no facts, no strategy or plan to execute the hair brained idea.

Cowboy builders come up with back of a fag packet schemes which have more credibility and substance.

Yes.

I read this as Civil Servants who are retiring or leaving for other reasons will not be replaced, along with short term/temporary contracts not being renewed.

There will be some redeployment and retraining to move people where they are needed.

I don't think any decisions have been yet GrannyGravy about how the "cull" will be achieved.

What's the betting the services currently being provided by the Civil Service will be outsourced to private providers?

Brexit has caused more work for the Civil Service because it's taken on extra red tape and the services which used to be provided by Brussels.

DiamondLily

It plays well to the right wing, The government put about the notion that all civil servants are overpaid, underworked leeches and that they won't be missed.

Many years ago, during some of the Thatcher years, I worked for the (then) DHSS processing benefit claims - I worked very hard, for average pay - harder than I've ever worked in a private company. 🙄

Those cheering the loss of 90,000 jobs might be singing a different tune when the benefits bill rockets upward, and when they are waiting even longer for tax queries, passports, driving licenses etc.

I worked for the Employment Service/Job Centre. The work was never finished and we all worked out socks off, dealing with technology that didn’t work and angry people who didn’t/couldn’t understand the system.

It seems that ‘help’ for those in need now has even more hoops to jump through than previously. Look at the debacle over Ukrainian visas. Those at the bottom generally do their best to help.

I’d be very happy if we reduced the number of managers and senior civil servants who inflict unworkable schemes that juniors have to enforce.

To improve efficiency, have systems that work, train staff properly. Reducing the Civil Service is just another way of privatising services so that another profit can be made from the public purse.