Do the councils hire long term unemployed.

tomtontom

scooby088 wrote: »

I aspire to become council worker they always seem to get paid for doing very little or nothing.

In which case you'll be in for a shock if you were to be successful.

poorlittlefish

scooby088 wrote: »

I aspire to become council worker they always seem to get paid for doing very little or nothing.

Well, that was never the case in the three authorities I worked for and as so many local government staff have been made redundant I don't see how that can be the case anywhere now.

scooby088

tomtontom wrote: »

In which case you'll be in for a shock if you were to be successful.

So how come when the council employees come to cut the grass they sit on their mowers for an hour and drink and smoke tea at 8.30 in the morning.

poorlittlefish

Maybe they aren't due to start work at 8.30am? Councils are massive organisations. It's ridiculous to make out that every public sector worker is sitting around twiddling their thumbs just because you see a couple doing that, particularly when you haven't worked in such an organisation yourself, nor have knowledge of teams' shift patterns/breaks etc. We used to get tenants moaning about seeing cleaners having cups of tea. Yes, they are entitled to breaks just as everyone else is!


The reality is that many council workers (and I speak from experience), certainly office-based ones, are overrun with work and do the best they can to help people who are often rude, aggressive and have an attitude of "gimme, gimme". Please don't tar everyone with the same brush.

BillJones

scooby088 wrote: »

So how come when the council employees come to cut the grass they sit on their mowers for an hour and drink and smoke tea at 8.30 in the morning.

When I worked for the council, there was an arms race between management and staff. Each type of job was given a set time to do (mow an acre of lawn, trim an acre of trees, sharpen a chainsaw, paint a set of goalposts etc.) and staff were required to do a minimum number of logged hours per day. Bonuses accrued above the minimum.

Inevitably, logs would become "Mowed field X four times", thereby logging four ties the actual work done. Management responded to having to constantly pay maximum bonuses by trimming the time allotted per task. By the time I left, a normal day would be "sharpened 50 chainsaws, moved front field seven times, applied six coats of paint to school football posts" etc. and you were given about thirty seconds credit for sharpening a chainsaw, or four minutes to paint a set of goalposts.

Despite this apparently frenetic day, I was told by colleagues that when we had a forestry day to make sure that I brought some magazines to read, a nice lunch, and something warm to sleep in, as the schedule was a couple of hours of trimming trees, followed by half a day of lying around reading and sleeping.

Even then, I was told off for working too fast, and giving yet more "ammunition" to the management to decrease the time allotted to the job.

Sky_

scooby088 wrote: »

I aspire to become council worker they always seem to get paid for doing very little or nothing.

Good luck but I don't think you're the right type.

I love being a council worker, it's brilliant doing nothing all day, I get a pretty good salary too. Life is great!

eamon

Councils have laid of thousands of people (through natural wastage and redundancies). Many more have seen their jobs Tuped to the private sector. These jobs have not been replaced except when deemed essential and can be funded. Don't believe the media hype about over paid and underworked public sector employees with their corresponding "gold plated pensions" it simply isn't true.

hyubh

BillJones wrote: »

Each type of job was given a set time to do (mow an acre of lawn, trim an acre of trees, sharpen a chainsaw, paint a set of goalposts etc.)

'Masculine' manual work is the sort of thing most likely to be outsourced nowadays (Amey, Serco, Balfour Beatty...).

Even then, I was told off for working too fast, and giving yet more "ammunition" to the management to decrease the time allotted to the job

Such a hero! Have a pat on the back.

oldestgnome

You have been given some brilliant advice. No-one can reiterate how important it is to get an interview you have to demonstrate how you fulfill all the skills in the job description, an example illustrating how is the way to get the interview.


If you get to interview this is when you can explain about your period of unemployment and how you have developed your skills through your part time self employment.


Good luck!

hyubh

eamon wrote: »

Many more have seen their jobs Tuped to the private sector.

Not necessarily a bad thing for the people involved, especially given their pension rights are protected. For one thing, they may now be free of restrictive payscales and merely cursory bonus schemes!

Don't believe the media hype about over paid and underworked public sector employees with their corresponding "gold plated pensions" it simply isn't true.

Not really - the LGPS is still a very good pension scheme, arguably too good to the extent it's far too expensive to think of forcing contractors to keep it available for new employees (instead, they're just forced to protect the pension rights of transferred employees). When the unions allude to the 'average' (i.e., mean) LGPS pension they aren't really helping anyone.