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Civil Servant Bashing
Comments
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My husband also works in a civil service IT job. He gets paid a pittance in comparison to a similar job in the private sector, but that is a trade off that he has conciously made, as he feels his better pension arrangements will go some way to compensating him for that in the long run (although he is not old enough to have joined the civil service in the days when the pension arrangements meant retirement at 50 or whatever).
But he works hard, often at weekends, and I can't remember the last time he was off sick. And the job his team does is important - if he and his colleagues weren't doing it, people would soon notice and there would be pages of ranting on here about how incompetent the civil service is. As I have never seen a thread of that nature on here, I can only conclude that they actually must be competent and efficient. But thats the thing isn't it? When things go well, no-one notices, its only when people screw up that it comes to light....
The civil service has slackers and bad management, but I have worked in both the private and public sectors and I've seen plenty of slacking in both. Hopefully over time they will be able to remove the lazy and incompetent civil servants (as they should), and it will be for the benefit of everyone.
I do a similar role as your hubby in the public sector, imo IT staff get crapped upon from a great height within this sector. The equivalent role in the private sector is paid almost double. Management honestly do not have the same skills set yet get paid obscene amounts of money because they are management. This is where a lot of dead wood lies in the public sector and where bad decisions come from. I have seen on many occassions the organisation getting ripped off bigtime by private sector companies yet they don't question it and freely send the cheque? Usually the same organisation has qualified staff that can do the same job. For IT staff there is no incentive.
pgilc1, you mention your mate is an IT contractor. Probably a prime example of public sector waste.0 -
icelandic_queen wrote: »I agree with Golden Anemone re the sick leave. I work for hrConnect, (for now) and deal with Civil Servants on a daily basis. The basic pay is not great and contrary to general opinion many civil servants are quite well educated. However, a word of caution to Civil Servants, I feel that the general reorganisation of the NICS may result in redundancies. The NICS have forecast their recruitment for 2010-2011 to decrease by 78% hence why almost 50 staff in hrConnect are currently going through the redundancy process, myself included. It will only take 1 department to take the plunge and the rest may follow.
Do you know if the Civil Service plans to recruit for the Opportunities for Degree Holders post again? I was told they usually advertise in November or have I missed it?0 -
any civil servants i know (all in either AA or AO or analagous grades) deserve the reputation that they have as being lazy useless spongers who get away with everything and will never get fired as they are "needed".
two work in the CSA and they are the worst by far! probably due to the fact that most people stay in CSA 6 months then leave as its so crap, they can do whatever they want, their flexi time is never checked, so probably owe around a week or more each to us tax payers.
the others think they have it hard, but get paid 14000 a year for doing post (opening, stamping and sorting) and other menial tasks such as finding files, sending emails and photocopying (not just a stereotype, thats what they actually do!)
one of them in particular (back to the CSA crew here) was the highest candidate in his office for a temporary promotion two grades above him, he had only been there 6 months and is on a final warning, he was told if he didnt have the warning he would have gotten the 3grand extra a year from aa to eo2 (or 1, whcihever is lowest) over everyone else who worked there and was eligable!
although i must stress, having been in the civil service myself for a short time (in what was a relatively hard job, but i was also overpaid in my own opinion) that anyone who is under thirty is usually a waste of space and doesnt deserve the money WE pay them. although those who were in higher grades or were over 30 seemed quite responsable and do deserve their pay and benefits.
i think it goes down to some younger staff just assuming they should get more for doing less, and thats in all jobs, but the civil service is the highest employer, so it is more evident.0 -
Ahhh your barking up the wrong tree here folks:eek: Yes I'm sure there are lazy and useless work shy people in the NICS as with all walks of life you get them everywhere:o
You should be at your local town halls demanding to see what your council staff actually do for their money:rotfl: average sick leave in councils is 3 weeks per year and thats just the average. I know several council employees who have nothing, and I mean nothing to do all day, yet get paid a very nice wage for doing it:mad:
Have you every wondered why your town clerk changes every 2 years ???? Which ever senior manager is 2 years off retirement (at 60) gets the post for his or her final 2 years for pension reasons ONLY. Apart from putting your signature to signs in council parks, what does a Town Clerk actually do ?
Yet we wonder why our rates go up every year:rotfl:
Leave the NICS alone, a few rotten apples should not spoil all of them. Take them rotten apples and through them at your Mayor and his 20 assistants next time you see him/her:rotfl:
Oh and NO I don't work for the NICS, I work for the NHS:eek: and don't get me started on them wasters:rotfl:I am trying, honest;) very trying according to my dear OH:rotfl:0 -
id say my NICS bashing comes from the people i know who work there, so maybe its more a friend bash from me, they just happen to be civil servants, at least two of them were wasters in their old jobs too, it just bugs me that they get away with it!! the managers need more authority to deal with wasters and get HR disConnect out of the picture!
but if im totally honest, if i could get away with doing as little as they do, having as long a lunch as they do, having "unlimited" flexi and "unlimited" sick days which they seem to have, then i would be well pleased and take full advantage, guess im just jealous...0 -
You should be at your local town halls demanding to see what your council staff actually do for their money:rotfl: average sick leave in councils is 3 weeks per year and thats just the average. I know several council employees who have nothing, and I mean nothing to do all day, yet get paid a very nice wage for doing it:mad:
I had been going to mention this in my previous post, but it was getting a bit long!
I worked for a while in one of our glorious councils and it was a shocking experience. For starters, many of the councillors (not all, I hasten to add, but a significant minority) were in the Tom Cruise/Christian Bale school of charm - i.e. no eye contact with mere mortals, insisted on being grovelled to like royalty, and treated the clerical staff as their personal assistant (e.g. my wife is applying for a job, here is her CV. I'm just off to a meeting, can you fill out the application form for me and I'll collect it in a couple of hours. Oh, and could you get me a cup of tea? Theres a good girl).
Then there were the council managers, who got paid almighty salaries to attend meetings all day (if they felt like turning up, usually they had something more important to do) and get their photos in the paper. And at the bottom of the heap, the clerical staff, who for about four fifths of the time had literally nothing to do and were bored out of their minds, and then for one fifth of the time were run into the ground attending to the every whim of their managers, who treated them like dirt (e.g. PA reminds manager repeatedly that he has important meeting to attend. He doesn't bother his backside going, then when a more senior manager questions his whereabouts, he tears his PA to shreds for not telling him how important it was. Er, is it not your job to know how important your meetings are?) Shocking!0 -
I worked in the Civil Service for nearly two years in one of the offices that Poots is now lording over.
I have to say I agree with some of the comments here. The amount of s*** people got away with was frustrating. I worked really hard and it ended up they just expected more and more of me - felt like if I put a foot wrong they'd come down on me like a ton of bricks. Yet there were people there who did sod all, took loads of days off, abusive to other staff,coming in hungover, not turning up at all, Monday or Friday-itis (I could go on forever) and nothing happened to them, they looked to the likes of me to pick up their work. The general consensus seemed to be they couldn't be bothered to discipline anyone as it would be too difficult to get rid of them anyway. But a senior told me they found it so frustrating as well as they wanted to get rid of certain elements but their hands were tied so they were stuck with them.
But some of the people I worked with were lovely and yes it could be very laidback in regards to breaks etc.
Unfortunately the bad apples in the Civil Service just give everyone a bad name.
They really need to wise up though and sack the slackers. They should give those jobs to unemployed people who would appreciate them and work hard. Makes me so mad!0 -
insisted on being grovelled to like royalty, and treated the clerical staff as their personal assistant (e.g. my wife is applying for a job, here is her CV. I'm just off to a meeting, can you fill out the application form for me and I'll collect it in a couple of hours. Oh, and could you get me a cup of tea? Theres a good girl).
:mad::mad::mad: I'd have wanted to tell him where to stick the form! The temptation to spit in his tea must have been immense :rotfl:0 -
any civil servants i know (all in either AA or AO or analagous grades) deserve the reputation that they have as being lazy useless spongers who get away with everything and will never get fired as they are "needed".
two work in the CSA and they are the worst by far! probably due to the fact that most people stay in CSA 6 months then leave as its so crap, they can do whatever they want, their flexi time is never checked, so probably owe around a week or more each to us tax payers.
the others think they have it hard, but get paid 14000 a year for doing post (opening, stamping and sorting) and other menial tasks such as finding files, sending emails and photocopying (not just a stereotype, thats what they actually do!)
one of them in particular (back to the CSA crew here) was the highest candidate in his office for a temporary promotion two grades above him, he had only been there 6 months and is on a final warning, he was told if he didnt have the warning he would have gotten the 3grand extra a year from aa to eo2 (or 1, whcihever is lowest) over everyone else who worked there and was eligable!
although i must stress, having been in the civil service myself for a short time (in what was a relatively hard job, but i was also overpaid in my own opinion) that anyone who is under thirty is usually a waste of space and doesnt deserve the money WE pay them. although those who were in higher grades or were over 30 seemed quite responsable and do deserve their pay and benefits.
i think it goes down to some younger staff just assuming they should get more for doing less, and thats in all jobs, but the civil service is the highest employer, so it is more evident.
um stereotyping much?????
so young people are the useless ones? i don't think so, i'm 23 and work in a department where i am one of the younger ones there, and i work my backside off to get through my work, not every young person is useless at their job and wants to sit back and do squat and take long lunches and rip the !!!! out of their flexi.
and i hate how people harp on about how they pay our wages and sound so disgusted as if we are not paying any tax ourselves-just remember that whilst you're taxes are paying our wages, our taxes are paying for something that could be useful to you. i don't see why civil servants have to get tarred with the same brush, and get slagged off because of the perks of their job(which realistically, aren't amazing when compared to other jobs, but no one seems to be mentioning that)
if people are so disgusted with how 'easy' it is working for the civil service and how it must be 'great' to have all these 'perks' left right and centre, then why don't they apply for a job in it if they feel so hard done by?Mortgage free wannabe #124
Mortgage due to be cleared January 2036 / goal is 4/5/26 (40th birthday)
Starting balance £117000 November 2010
Balance as of 5/4/21(date decided I wanted to become mortgage free) £89426.62 / current balance £82000
Daily interest at January 2021 £4.76
Current daily interest £4.390 -
To be fair to civil servants, they get criticised a bit unfairly. The politicians like Poots are too spineless to criticise other parts of the public sector where the sick leave problem is just as bad if not worse.
For example, not so long ago I read in the paper the response of a politician to the high level of teachers' sick leave in his local board area. He said it must be due to stress caused by uncertaintly over the 11-plus!
Teachers like nurses, doctors, policemen and firemen can get away with it more easily because the gullible public think they all "do a difficult job" and ignore behaviour that is rightly condemned in the civil service.
And they tend to be much better paid than civil servants.0
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