OUT OF COMMISSION

The Commission for Smart Government’s radical ideas for civil service reform – which included cutting the number of officials, increasing pay and replacing permanent secretaries with chief execs – prompted some reflections.

“Well now you have heard it from this think tank: salaries are considerably lower than our private counterparts,”

Peter Drummond wrote.

“Unions have been saying this for years and yet we still get offered the worst paydeals.”

Mark Ryan added: “Increase pay! Earn less than the private sector! That’s hilarious as the Treasury keep telling us our pay is way above the private sector which is why our pay is frozen or subject to restraint!”

Kaide Seager said the policy paper “is great but misses a fundamental reason for joining the civil service: mainly the desire to serve the British people and the British nation. Public service in my opinion should always take precedence over trying to compete with the private sector.

“The civil service should celebrate and encourage people to join with increased patriotism aimed at the devolved nations and regions of the UK, with emphasis on local and national civic duty. With a new sense of British independence, the civil service should embrace our global vocation by increasing the opportunity to allow Commonwealth citizens to join its ranks. Many are well-skilled and actually from British diaspora. The Bank of England recently had a Canadian as governor and former PM of Australia

Tony Abbott is now an advisor to the UK Board of Trade. The Commonwealth offers an unlimited pool of talented, diverse and pro-British people. Sometimes the future lies in the past. Often united by language, monarchy, culture, history, ethnicity and common law. Let’s go, Commonwealth!”

“ingrained snobbery” over qualifications – by shifting the focus from A-levels and degrees to encourage a wider range of talented and experienced applicants for government jobs – struck a chord with some of our readers.

“I was always led to understand that the civil service recruited on merit as a key part of the candidate assessment/selection process,”

Trevor Chenery said.

And Tahmid Chowdhury commented: “I found this quite odd when first reading as in practice most civil service jobs I’ve seen don’t actually ask for university degrees explicitly. That being said, I think there’s more to be done to stop making it an expected norm, particularly in central departments where you certainly get that ‘certain type’”.

Sharon Brookes shared her own experience. “Having joined the civil service in 1992 with only my GCSEs and experience of work through the YTS (Youth Training Scheme for those too young to remember) I am now a Grade 6, only now finishing a work related MSc. I have had lots of judgement placed on me during my career in various forms,” she said. “When promoted to C2, a colleague asked what uni I had attended – when I replied I didn’t go she questioned how I could get promoted and she couldn’t when she has a history degree!

“When I was promoted to G7 my SCS line manager told me at my [end of year meeting] that I had been performing above expectations and I was head and shoulders over my peers at interview. However, he added he maybe shouldn’t have promoted me as I don’t have a university education!

“That had a considerable impact on me and still does (hence now doing a work related degree). I agree that in specialist areas employees will require A-levels and uni degrees but definitely encourage removal of this prerequisite where knowledge, skills and experience can count for far more.”

But not everyone agreed. “Most pure subjects are not directly transferable to the work place but that doesn’t detract from their value,” Rachael Griffiths wrote. “Let’s not devalue the considerable effort of those who leave school with minimal qualifications but then go on to subsequently improve themselves, often because there is a bar to achieve. This [argument] implies throwing all that away – that’s tosh.”

Mark de Buisseret added:

“If you don’t want to be centered on degrees and the like it is quite easy. Dispense with the fast track scheme and recruit everyone no matter what their [qualifications] at just one level.”