Entrepreneur John Caudwell has condemned the pandemic-induced work-from-home culture as “a catastrophe for the British economy” and an “epidemic of inefficiency sweeping the country” as he demands in the Mail that civil servants get back to their desks.
Up and down the country, large parts of life are not functioning as they should, causing enormous frustration as we carry out our daily tasks.
From delays of as much of three months for renewing a passport or driving licence to finding it impossible to speak to a human to pay a bill or make a complaint, the pandemic has left a trail of destruction that Britain is still reeling from.
And I’m sorry to say, this situation seems to suits some people rather well.
Part of the problem is the continuing trend for working from home, which some see as an absolute windfall that allows them to walk the dog, have a long lunch, look after the children and still collect full pay.
But there is something else, too: a growing sense of entitlement on the part of workers who believe that jobs exist for their own convenience rather than to serve customers or the public.
And it is the civil service who particularly benefit from this privilege of convenience.
Whitehall workers enjoy job security and generous pensions – and all for hours that allow them to clock off at five o’clock.
But while customers can hold private companies to account for sloppy service by simply going elsewhere, they have no such option for the Government departments that run essential parts of their daily lives.
Worse, their taxes pay the wages of our enormous public sector workforce, leading to a growing sense of resentment when they are put on hold for the umpteenth time – or simply don’t get put through to a human on the phone at all.
The sheer scale of the epidemic of inefficiency sweeping the country means Boris Johnson’s plans to tackle the overstaffed public sector by taking a knife to more than 90,000 civil service jobs in line with pre-pandemic levels is hugely welcome.
There can be little doubt that the civil service is now hugely over-staffed and in desperate need of pruning back. But with so many working ‘flexibly’ from home, is it any wonder they need so many to get the job done?
Worth reading in full.
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It’s merely revealed how little “civil” “servants” really do for all the wealth they loot from us.
Nurses, policemen, firemen?
Those you mention are public sector workers not civil servants.
True: but most of them could certainly do with a kick up the proverbial.
80% of nurses are work-shy when I’ve been to an NHS facility to be disappointed.
and as for the PC police, they ignore so many of Peel’s principles they should be sued
From a contributor on the ‘Notalotofpeopleknowthat’ I like the alternative term ‘Snivel Serpents’
In my neck of the woods we used to refer to them as “simple Servants”
If you work in an office where the height of intellectual discussion is who is the best superhero, working at home is a blessed relief and far more productive.
At the other end of the scale, when I was a cleaner in a boarding school (07:00 start) some of my colleagues used to get up even earlier than normal so they could spend time watching Breakfast television.
Mind you WFH isn’t an option if you are a manual ( classed as vulgar but necessary) by the MLE.
In my previous job decontaminating surgical instruments, obviously it was onsite. I start at 6am or earlier now, it’s a great time of the day. All I can hear is the birds singing and no whiney colleagues.
Agreed, I worked shifts (24/7) for over 32 years, one of the best shifts in the whole year was 2 pm to 10 pm on Christmas day.
Away from all the stupidity of that day and double time to boot.
A day in the life:
I mustered for duty in the 70’s/80’s at 6am, in winter, at a police office, in the centre of a sprawling Glasgow council estate.
It included the shift standing to attention whilst a Sergeant and Inspector examined our appearance.
Polished shoes, dark socks; ironed shirt, tunic and trousers and a tie knotted to prescription (no Windsor knots for us); freshly brushed felt hat; requisite whistle and chain presented correctly; handcuffs discreetly carried; notebook with the day and date freshly appended, and a sharpened pencil with no rubber (taboo!). A wooden truncheon had to be discreetly held in a special trouser pocket, with the strap tucked in so as not to present any sign of aggression.
Hands and fingernails were examined for cleanliness and a freshly shaven face was demanded. Written permission was necessary to grow a moustache, (no beards allowed unless medically necessary) and haircuts to force policy; cap badge polished and a warrant card presented or we were sent home to get it and docked the time to do so (this was a privilege extended as Force Standing Orders recommended that we were put on charges).
When inspection was finished we assembled to review the night shift’s activities with run downs on event’s – arrest’s, battered wives, abducted children, fires, sudden deaths etc. which was completed by 6:45.
We then washed, fuelled and inspected our vehicles, checked and issued personal radio’s etc., fed the stray dogs, swept the yard, and ensured our lockers were tidy as they might be inspected when we were on the street.
At 7am we were finally ‘on the clock’ and started to get paid.
Saturdays were fun though as it was warrant day. Crews were handed several warrants each. We knew the miscreants who were dodging court spent Friday night on the piss and were lying in their beds. By lunchtime the cells were full of scrotes ready for their court appearance on Monday morning.
There is nothing more satisfying to a cop than nicking a criminal.
There is nothing more depressing than watching them walk out of court with a pat on the head.
Different times when, whilst we hated the discipline, we understood it. And when you got good at it, it was easy.
You did your job.
Wow.
The rest of the week was also eventful. Attending complaints, sorting out disputes between neighbours, being the first called to an RTA (usually the fire service now), attending burglaries, taking statements, rounding up suspects, spending far too much time in court waiting rooms to give evidence, car chases, foot races after scrotes, rattling every door and lock on your beat at night, dodging your sergeant whilst on foot patrol, subbing for school crossing patrols when they were sick, attending sudden deaths and legally confirming a Doctors opinion on cause of death, helping undertakers and mortuary attendants, searching moors, cutting suicide victims down from trees.
The list is literally endless. We were the ‘go too’ service for everything. But the leftists called the country a police state because we were walking around the streets in the middle of the night. No security cameras then of course.
Guess what? The same people are screaming for more cops walking the the streets of the leafy shires now.
Another great British institution deliberately trashed.
Nowadays you rarely see a police officer patrolling during the day, never mind at night! As an aside, the same can be said of doctors. GPs used to regular make home visits to ill people day or night. Now you can’t even see a GP in the surgery. The result is people who could have been treated at home are now going straight to hospital or waiting until their relatively mild aliment becomes something more serious and then going to hospital and people wonder why the hospitals are at breaking point!
Did you really knot your ties? Certainly in the Met ties were clip on to stop some scrote strangling you with it!
When I first joined in 1976, yes, we knotted our ties. We were issued clip ons a few years later.
No sign of aggression! Not strutting about in scruffy baseball caps tooled up with semi-automatic weapons then.
I know which I respect more.
Note: Unshaven face.
Medical exemption?
Medical reasons for needing to grow a beard include “folliculitis barbae”, “an itchy and sometimes tender eruption of hair follicles in skin areas prone to shaving.”
His sergeant likes to check – and coincidentally confirm that he hasn’t gone “metrosexual” – by making sure he hasn’t shaved his knackers.
It would be a matter of courtesy to cite your source.
I never liked the idea of cops being routinely armed when I was in the job.
I have now changed my mind. I would rather they were routinely, discreetly armed rather than an overt show of force which seems, more often than not, unnecessary.
But then I have also changed my mind about gun laws in the UK in general. We should be allowed to arm ourselves against an oppressive government, as the American constitution demands they are.
Furthermore, had there been a legally armed teacher at Dunblane, many children’s lives might have been saved were Thomas Hamilton gunned down.
And the evidence is clear from America, there are very few gun crimes committed by registered gun owners. It’s those with illegal firearms who are the problem.
Gun ownership could be improved in America, with great benefit to society, but it’s never going to happen when criminals are howling for the whole country to be disarmed to allow them to get on with their business.
“Criminals are howling for the whole country to be disarmed…” I think you mean “Democrats.”
Indeed RedHot. Our government would surely be more inclined to support our rights if we had our version of the Second Amendment rather than imposing the globalists’ policies on us.
I never really understood until recently the real reason the American constitution allows citizens to arm themselves is as protection against an oppressive government. I now fully support America’s right to bear arms and probably would support something similar in the UK too. Our own dear government has adeptly demonstrated over the last 2 years why it is important to be able to arm yourself against an oppressive state.
this is not respect. This is fear
It was good in the olden days, people would leave their doors unlocked.
I was a burglar, you see.
Cue EF with his usual uninformed bollox.
I find his/her contributions are quite left field but memorably so.
I recall research that suggested that the public regarded the police as more professional, honest and approachable when wearing traditional police clothing including collar and tie.
I say I have to agree.
The photo above says approachable and professional – the photo below says hostile and too many combat video games.
Halcyon days.
The scrotes even had knives in my day, imagine that!
Times have changes, as has the need to ensure cops are safe but, that bobby’s helmet was designed to protect.
It’s made of cork and can withstand enormous impact, but it’s light to wear and not as sweaty as it looks. It also deflects the rain over the collar of a raincoat and away from the eyes.
I faced people with knives [edit] when I was wearing a tunic. None of them surprised me as I knew, from decent intelligence, what I was walking in to. The trick was not to confront the guy by screaming at him waving a gun, the idea was to defuse the situation long enough for the troops to arrive. When my backup got there, reality dawns on the ned that they are in real shit.
Most people wielding weapons are either drunk or drugged. They usually end up crying because they are invariably not the problem, they are reacting to the problem, and it’s not the police who arrive after the problem manifests itself.
I would say at least 80% of the time it’s over a woman.
My late father looked just like that. 30 years in the Met, when it was a proper police force.
I miss him.
The police uniform in those days gave an air of authority and service to the public. Now the uniforms are telling the public we are disliked, a nuisance and can be beaten, abused as though we are the enemy. The uniform is nothing more than a commitment to thuggery.
My, My. A downvote for reciting fact.
Is that known as cognitive dissonance?
I only ever learnt the four-in-hand “schoolboy” knot!
I have no idea what that is.
For me it’s just the normal way of tying a tie. But it’s seen as the “bog standard” way by blokes who know two or more different ways.
Interestingly, I invented how to tie a knot in a necktie around 1971 when I was 14. It was borne from necessity. I had a big neck from playing Rugby and any conventional knot made the tie too short.
My knot was simple and created a perfectly even knot, unlike the lopsided Windsor and most others.
When I was in my mid 30’s my business partner ran into the office one day waving the Daily Telegraph in his hand, and on the front page was instructions on a new way of tying a necktie knot. It was mine, but someone thought to publicise it.
Hey Ho.
I lived for a while on a Glasgow council estate. The police officers there were always pleasant to me when we passed each other. Possibly I was one of the few residents on the estate whom they hadn’t come to “know” in the course of their duties.
LOL. A fine demonstration of ignorance I’m afraid.
Glasgow council estates were/are overflowing with decent people so, naturally, cops are civil to people they pass in the street.
Believe it or not, most ‘criminal’ families and individuals are well known to the police. It’s our ever declining societal ‘values’ which stop cops from preventing crime, rather than being forced to detect it. Often mis-termed ‘racial profiling’ when it’s suspect profiling.
Suspect profiling is colour blind and is derived from generation of experience, handed down over those generations, to identify likely crime candidates.
Occasionally it goes wrong. More often than not, when left alone, it’s highly accurate.
Plod doesn’t exist in a vacuum. They all have friends, family and neighbours, most good, some not so good, and others who provide nuggets of information.
We are, by various means, essentially defunding our own police, and have been doing so for many years, financially, intellectually and morally.
And the truncheon could be used to beneficial effect on the delicate parts of said scrotes. Happy days
Thank God things have moved on!
Just a hypothesis, but maybe the reason why they felt a need to watch breakfast TV before they went to work was because they wanted memories of it bouncing around in their heads so they could tune out from the boarding school environment?
You talk from experience of a boarding school environment we presume.
Friend works for a well-known national charity – here’s a message that was circulated recently……
“When walking along narrow corridors or through narrow access points, call ahead to warn of your approach. Please avoid unnecessarily visiting offices you don’t normally work in. But, if you do need to visit or access another office, please pause at the door and ask permission before entering.”
…….despicable highly paid executives, trying to maintain regulation, that they utilize to justify not going into the office.
They save money in travel and lunches – and do little or no work……they are frauds and shits of the first order.
Wonder if donors realise that their money is going towards funding almost a dozen of these executives @ £75k p.a. minimum.
“charity” is mostly there because it’s a huge dodge of taxes.
Many charities only exist thanks to generous taxpayer funding. Ever wonder what happened to all those nice people employed by Quango’s? They were employed by charities which are now lobbying agencies for whichever cause the government is pushing at a given moment in time.
You will, of course, notice how incredibly professional and polished many charities have become over the past 20 years.
I know of one advertising manager with a prominent children’s charity who was suddenly earning enough to move from a grotty ex council house in a not very nice estate, to a 750k detached four bedroom house in a very nice part of Kent.
And of course this maintains the illusion there is a ‘virus’ circulating in every nook and cranny.
I support one local charity via donations of used clothes. I do not and will not support any others. If they can fund these ridiculous salaries they certainly don’t need my cash.
I’m sure someone in Africa is grateful to receive a pair of your old worn out socks.
Been there and seen the abject poverty… and, yes, a pair of second hand socks would be welcomed by many.
Africans do not wear socks, even in cold northern European states. I know from personal experience.
I used to contribute to a local charity, until I had the pleasure of sitting next to the Chief Executive at a Chamber of Commerce lunch. After hearing about his new BMW and his holiday in Mauritius for an hour, I determined never to give them another penny.
“Charity begins at home”.
Your last sentence; exactly the reason why I stopped contributing.
I was creaming well over 100k for a number of years from one charity!
Why is rush hour traffic still so abysmal if millions are working from home?
Exactly…..
Most of those working for businesses are working twice as hard just to pay the bills.
Most new home buyers in my road own businesses and have enough set aside to spend £2m+ in doubling the size of 1950s detached houses to turn them into 21st century mansions with the front garden paved over so they can park 4 cars in front of the house.
We had a message from the local police recently saying: ‘either put wrought-iron gates up or have a clear line of site to the road if you don’t want to encourage burglars’.
If you’re wondering how hard it is for the workers in businesses, ask how good it is for the owners of them.
Maybe if they only got paid if they turned up, it might be an incentive. I worked in the civil service for a while many years ago and we had to KEY in and out
You can ‘Key’ in and out on a PC these days.
And Big Brother can keystroke monitor you at home these days too. Have been able to for 20 years and more. Bunch of peepshow perverts these days thinking that those with two higher degrees (the second one self-funded) need monitoring like borstal boys and girls. All pathetic power games, nothing to do with productivity. They track you using mobile phones too, telling you where you were the previous evening.
You’d have thought they had better things to do, like play with their kids, let their husbands their rocks off etc etc.
But while customers can hold private companies to account for sloppy service by simply going elsewhere, they have no such option for the Government departments that run essential parts of their daily lives.
This is not true. If you contact HMRC you are described as ‘a customer’. So I’m guessing you have a choice about how much tax you pay, to whom, and when – surely?
Brilliant.
The wfh revolution goes way beyond the civil service. It is one of the (many) unintended consequences of lockdown. It was previously offered to people with caring responsibilities. It works OK for some posts but not others especially for front line ones. It is now going to be difficult to put the clock back. If you allow people to work from home for two years, is it really surprising that they get used to it? Not at all confident that Rees Mogg’s sledgehammer approach is going to do the trick either. He seems to be playing to the gallery to me.
To be fair to Rees Mogg, at least he’s trying to get them back to work.
Not that he should have to. The instruction should simply be sent out to all the WFH civil servants, get back into the office or tender your resignation.
I will say though, two of my close relatives are CS’s and partially WFH. Both are in their bedrooms/offices for the working day and get through far more work there than in the office.
If WFH is performance reviewed (and I don’t mean some government run national examination) by their managers then I think doing so is reasonable providing they achieve as much from home as they do in the office, which is presumably reviewed anyway.
I would even be happy that if people could achieve their office standards whilst on a beach in Barbados, WFH is fine. It’s rather the point of 21st Century communications isn’t it?
How about we all had the opportunity to live in a cheap house in Monaco, pay Monaco taxes (none) on our income we earned from working for a British company? We use no services provided by the infrastructure the UK provides and we take care of our own healthcare/pensions etc.
Think of all the immigration we could avoid………
I’d like to see evidence that cheap houses in Monaco actually exist…..
One thing that nobody ever considers in this debate is just how terrible offices are for productivity! That seems to be a bit like saying climate emergencies are bollocks….almost unmentionable yet completely true
The government only have themselves to blame. Blindfolded, tunnel-vision acceptance of flawed modelling and unnecessary virus and distancing scaremongering from day one, quickly followed by cheerleading WFH and how fantastic technology allowed such a move. A huge horse has bolted. The stable door has been removed and burned while Gates, Schwab, and co dance round the fire. Reap what you sow etc
I disagree.
We have the government to blame. Trouble is, they suffer no consequences for their bad decisions.
People should read David Graeber’s 2019 book ‘Bullshit Jobs’. As ‘real’ working-class jobs have disappeared, meaningless middle-class ones have appeared, rather than us all having more leisure.
60 years ago, we were promised a 10-15 hour working week by now. Instead, it’s gone the other way.
This is true. I recall ‘Tomorrows World’ doing a piece specifically about it in the 1970’s.
Maybe that why the council always seem to have one man digging a hole, two supervising, (Supervisor, and assistant supervisor), one H&S guy to make sure safe working procedure are followed, and a site manager to keep them all in check.
I taught a Chinese national over here to study, how to drive, a few years ago.
As we drove past road works on the first two days he was gobsmacked.
I would love to articulate a shocked Chinese accent on here but I can’t, so use your imagination. “Why these road works have no peeple working????”
“Why these road works still here, danger to community”
“In China, road-workers velly well paid. Work round clock, 24/7. It is considered dishonourable that they do not finish work in 24 hours”.
I asked him what ‘velly well paid’ meant in China. So we did a quick comparison. He worked on the roads, it’s considered honourable to do manual labour before moving into academia, so he had first hand knowledge.
I wasn’t absolutely certain what council road workers are paid in the UK but I took a reasonable guess, on the optimistic side.
Turns out, Chinese road workers get paid (very roughly) double per hour what they do in the UK.
If they do double the work, fine.
When was the last time road works around you were completed in 24 hours?
Judging by my pupil, Chinese road workers are around 10 times more efficient than UK road workers. And that’s being generous to UK workers!
Actually, where I live, most of the time. They’ve just been relaying pavements and filling in small damage to the road surface and they complete each section in 24hrs, not barricading off any extra road. I can’t speak for the rest of the UK, but where I live, they do it efficiently.
I once read a story a few years back that Chinese workers replaced a bridge over a motorway in 24 hours. There’s a road where I live which connects Newcastle to the coast imaginarily called the Coast Rd. And there’s a road that crosses the Coast Rd called Norham Rd. A few years back they decided to replace the Norham Rd bridge. Took around a year. How can that be when Chinese workers done pretty much the same job in 24 hours? Makes no sense.
I was born, and raised for several years in Hong Kong.
The Chinese ask no favours from anyone. We might describe their society as corrupt; Chinese New Year is notable for its red envelopes. They are exchanged to ensure a prosperous future. Predictably they often contain money to ensure that desire is fulfilled.
There is/was (I haven’t been back) no tax implication because it’s a tradition going back centuries. The envelopes can contain anything of unlimited value.
The Chinese are also incredibly hard workers. It’s considered honourable in an overt way (western honour for working is covert but still exist’s).
They have a stronger sense of community than the west. It’s considered dishonourable not to take care of your elder family members.
We consider them heathens, but with several thousand years more culture and religious history than we have, I’m not sure it’s for us to judge them.
They’re also sneaky, lying bastards!
We were also promised that nuclear power would be so cheap that it would be given away.
A rash, but not unreasonable comment of the time.
Nuclear power was corrupted by weapons production. Nuclear facilities provided weapons grade material as a by-product.
Had the world embraced nuclear energy for what it was, rather than what it could produce, we could very well be living in a time of unlimited energy for next to nothing.
I’m full time wfh in the public sector, we’ve been advised not to expect to go back to working from an office base regardless of the govts position – it saves money, apparently. I’m now expected to deliver at least twice as much work as when we were in the office, largely due to dump and run management and managers always being unavailable due to meetings so there’s no chance of a conversation about workload. Out of sight, out of mind. I might add that I had an undeliverable workload even back then, although my colleagues never seem to have quite as much…
And that’s a real problem, the concept that because you work from home you should deliver more work than in the office because it’s ‘a cushy number’.
Complete bollox.
If you can do X volume of work in an office and that’s acceptable, why should you be expected to do X+Y when working from home.
Same hours, same pay, and you shoulder the expense of heating, lighting, rent electricity.
If 2 hours travelling time/expense is saved then that’s to your benefit, not theirs. If they want the two hours as extra work, fine, they can pay you an extra two hours per day.
So, who does the ‘public sector’ serve? The public, the government, itself…?
The NHS, the police, fire service are all civil servants.
You choose. We can pay for them collectively or we can pay for them privately.
We need to have more imaginative ways of working in order to travel less, but also to maintain the benefits of team working. For example, three days in the office, and two at home will reduce travel costs and lead to a better work/life balance while maintaining contact with the teams.
Journalists are really jealous of the CS benefits, which leads to this campaign of hatred, but how many also work from home? Yes, you can make it more efficient, but to be fair to the CS, I worked at home for 18 months with the CS, and I had regular OTIF targets to meet.
What’s wrong with travel?
Would love some evidence that it’s more unproductive. Is this a knee jerk reaction to change? Service from the private sector is bloody awful as faceless companies use IT to cut costs. Dealing with a jobs-worth public sector worker is no worse than dealing with private companies who are just as unaccountable. The poor level of service from private and public sector non-essential workers is no better or worse than my pre-lockdown experiences, whether they work from home or not.
Like all these things, it will be a mixed bag. Some people will be more productive, not being interrupted by work colleagues. Some will be less productive, getting disturbed by children. Some will benefit from an extra two hours sleep a night, some will find the loneliness leads to unhappiness and unproductiveness.
You can never generalise over these things, merely experiment and see what works, what doesn’t.
Nouveau-riche billionaire John Caudwell speaks of “a growing sense of entitlement on the part of workers”.
You would rather Caudwell was inherited “riche” rather than Nouveau?
Or is it just the rich in general you despise?
What he means is that labour supply and demand means he is having to pay his ants rather more.
Whenever a billionaire comes out with something like this, go and interview his/her workers. It’s always good to get a sense of perspective on these things….
It’s not mentioned in the article, but most of the 90k extra civil servants were taken on to sort out a) Brexit and b) the pandemic.
While the pandemic staff can be wound down, some of the Brexit jobs are likely to be permanent because of the increased bureaucracy and regulation.
Some of the cuts that were made before that, in the years of austerity, are unsustainable. For example the justice system is in full-on crisis.
Fingal bullshitting as usual.
Provide number, evidence, experience, numnuts, not just your usual unevidenced drivel.
What you feel or desire is worthless, we can only deal in quantifiable entities.
e.g.
How many cuts? Quantify the full-on crisis.
It’s all out there in plain view, LukeWarm. You just have to open your eyes.
If it’s out there in plain view, give us all some links. It’s easy.
You are so lazy, LukeWarm. Have a little rummage around and you will find answers in the FT, the BBC and the Institute for Government.
You made the claim Fingers, you back it up.
But you won’t because it’s your usual made up bullshit.
You wouldn’t know what the FT was if someone served your chips in it.
I’d certainly be surprised, I have an online subscription.
LOL. Bollox.
You can do it too LukeWarm, you just have to put your hand in your pocket.
But I didn’t make the claims so I don’t need to back them up.
As usual you try everything to duck the issue because you have no evidence.
Loser.
Yes, it’s really efficient to spend hours every day on expensive, frustrating travel to do a job that you could do from anywhere.
Lockdowns had the apparently unforeseen consequence of showing people that being a wage slave was pants; particularly when that wage hadn’t gone up for fifteen years and when the job itself was completely pointless. People have had two years of still having the pointless, project-management-speak meetings, but doing so in a pleasant environment rather than an overcrowded, hot, noisy, open-plan office where they were lucky to find a desk. They can use their own lavatory, rather than having to share stinking, filthy office ones with freaks, they no longer have to look at Stonewall posters or risk a joke in the tea point being construed as a ‘micro aggression’ and, to make up for the lack of a payrise for fifteen years, they can save money on commuting. The government is not going to get that genie back in the bottle unless it seriously reconsiders the contemptuous way in which it treats its own staff; and a bullying campaign in the right wing press will get it nowhere.
having been born in another country and living here for 25 years, I can say with hand on heart, the Brits are hardly the most industrious workers in the world.
I read it wrong at first, I read the Brits are the most industrious workers.
I am German, I often say I came here to teach the British what working is and how to be efficient.
I do not know how the younger generation in Germany handles office politics (i’m 49), but having your phone next to you on your desk and checking facebook at least once an hour, after you searched for shoes on the internet on the company computer, is hopefully not happening. Although a German political news show on YT a few months ago shared an advert from a local paper, looking for an apprentice to install kitchens. It was full of: If you check Instagram every five minutes, a splinter in your finger prompts you to cry for the doctor, etc, then we not are interested. Germany’s “handwerk” is terribly understaffed, everyone wants to work in media and make quick bucks whilst keeping their soft hands squeaky clean.
I have to say I have followed and agreed with the Daily Sceptic for the last year or so, but on this point I profoundly disagree. Flexible working is both a good thing and should be here to stay. I’ve personally ran my business from home for decades and my wife now works 2 days in the office and 3 days from home. There has been no drop in efficency, in fact she has been able to achieve more now the commute is curtailed. Her company are happy and her mental wellbeing is certainly improved. Win win I’m afraid!
Also I don’t believe the nonsense of how the DVLA are taking months to issue or replace licences. I personally renewed mine by post in 10 days flat start to finish just this month. My neighbour’s son has just past his driving test in April. He got his upgraded to a full licence in roughly the same time. So from a personal point of view the evidence in this article simply doesn’t stack up.
This clamber by The Daily Sceptic to get everybody back to billions of miles and.billions of hours wasted on public transport and over crowded roads to jobs that can quite easily be done over the Internet is reactionary nonsense and our of touch with the evolving World.
Yes, I guess DVLA and passport offices are back to full staff in the office, the backlog was last year. These cs could not work from home as the documents people provide could not be dealt with at home. Germany has a problem and backlog issuing IDs, which are requirement to have for everyone above 16, at the moment, but that is due to switching to a new software, as usual.
The DVLA went through a phase of industrial problems last year. They failed to remind me of the need to update my photo card , but when I realised it was out of date and needed renewal, it only took them about 3 days (including a weekend) to issue a new one by post when I dealt with it online. This worked in my case, because I had recently renewed my main passport with the Passport office, so on shelling out £14 with the DVLA by credit card, they were able to extract a copy from the other lot – so both my passport and my licence photo card have identical digital pictures taken originally by the Royal Mail.
Those in control of government need to remember that it has no real money of its own and show a lot more respect for the taxpayers who provide it. A 50% reduction in spending would be a reasonable target…
I’ll believe Johnson will cut the Civil Service by 91,000 when it happens.
I’m a retired former Civil Servant, but not a career one. Until I joined, all my working life had been spent in the private sector. I was gobsmacked by the inefficiency and bureaucracy. Everything you have read about both are true, and more.
Cameron/Clegg cut the number of Civil Servants. Many of them, like me, were simply hived off into a Quango on precisely the same terms of employment. But they got the headline they wanted.
It is clear there has been an imbalance between private and public sector for quite some time. The levels of public spending are simply not affordable nor realistic, hence the need to borrow significantly year on year.
The numbers of non-essential workers (pen pushers) should be slashed savagely, forcing those culled to take jobs in the private sector and actually contribute to the tax grab we need to run the country.
Protecting these people on full pay during the pandemic was an absolute insult to those of us who lost our income through no fault of our own. At the very least, their pay should have been cut to furlough levels for “full” service.
I have seen first hand how government departments work (DEFRA), the sheer level of laziness and entitlement amongst staff who know they’re on a golden ticket is deeply nauseating.
The Civil Service needs reducing by far more than 90,000. These people are NOT essential workers. We have a shortage of lorry drivers due some of the most draconian regulations, we have a shortage of food growers and pickers, we have a shortage big industry and hence a workforce. These civil servants have only ever, in many cases, worked in the public sector and have no idea of how a country realistically functions.
Let’s get them unto real jobs and real working hours with real salaries. However, I suspect this will be a pipe dream as most will be made redundant on huge financial packages and then reemployed in some committee or quango role created to keep them in the system.