h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Under the "Neutrality..." section it's said that Civil Servants cannot be sacked. I can assure you that they can. For example, any gross misconduct like dishonesty can, and does, result in dismissal. The disiplinary procedures are more involved than that of a private company but the end point is the same.

For sake of completeness of a good article, the "ranks" bit is a little out of date in that in 1996 all G5 ranks and above senior managers became members of the Senior Civil Service which is a sort of organisation within an organisation (there's just under 3,500 at this level out of the 500,000 in the Civil Service).

Yes you can be sacked. You can also be "compulsorily retired on the grounds of redundancy" for the crime of trying to protect your staff from a psycopathic senior manager, as I (a Grade 7 engineer) was two years ago. The myth of Civil Service job securuity is just that, a myth. Further, the author of this article is not only out of date with his/her ranks, but also incorrect in both title and equivalences of other than administrative grades. I suspect he/she is/was an administrator........

On a lighter note, I thought "a brief rundown of the Civil Service" was what Thatcher tried?

I've amended the bit about being sacked - and by 'amended' I suppose strictly speaking I mean 'removed'.

I'm a little confused as to what's wrong with the 'ranks' section. I tried to do a little rejig last night but I'm not really sure what's wrong here. Would one of you be able to tell me specifically, so I don't make a wrong change here?

Thanks lots,

Jimster

Hello there!
I'm the author of this article and err... I'm
The bit about sacking was right as far as i knew, so i put it in and nobody corrected me. Should've chased it up, my bad.
As for ranks, I got those from an ex-civil servant, so I assume they're right... What's wrong with them?
Oberon2001

Don't worry, Oberon, they were right until a few years ago, but they were revised extensively.

Sorry for causing disquiet. I had assumed you were a civil sevant or an ex-one (if that's grammatical). As you are not, you would not know about the state of undeclared war that exists between clerks (who are all shiny-bummed nitpicking narrow-minded deskbound penpushers)and engineers (who are all open minded, young at heart, intelligent, far-seeing.......oh, just wonderful people!)

Going off at a tangent somewhat: another couple of terms bandied about were Generalists (admin) and Specialists (engineers, medical etc). The definitions usually given were: Generalists learn less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything, Specialists learn more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. (Usually it's put a bit more crudely than that, but I won't lower the tone). There are always arguments about who equates to what, and it matters a great deal to some people who should know better. I think the days of a Senior Executive Officer and a Senior Professional and Technology Officer (yes) arguing about who was or wasn't entitled to a square of carpet in their office are gone, but it used to get very bitter sometimes!

Mind you, a lot of money could rest on it. The poor sod who really suffered, in my view, was the Higher Executive Officer or HEO. That grade was used as the datum point for all the other grades and classes, ie if a grade or class got more pay than an HEO they could get such and such an allowance or privilege, if they got less they couldn't. The HEO could never win 'cos they always got paid the same as an HEO.

As you so rightly said, a lot of this got swept away with Agencies. Pay "Bands" have been set up, and the agencies tend to create job titles then allocate the job to a pay band. I believe it was like that many years ago, with literally thousands of job categories. Life goes in circles as ever.

I was one of those Civil Servants. With regards to the sacking, I thought it was correct within the context of the paragraph i.e. political neutrality. I would also point to one of comments in peer review http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F107999?thread=233304&skip=24&show=20 (The Cynical Bit, does mention the moving to different grade structures and how it is easier to get rid of people). It is also mentioned within the article about how job security is being eroded as part of the modernisations that were going through. My grade structures was right at the time I was there and I was an EO. I can't help it if I am sick of the place and didn't want be reminded of my time there.

A large number of civil service bodies (esp. those linked to central government departments) still operate under the AA, AO, EO... grade structures. Even those that revised these into pay bands are essentially describing the same system with different words.

Regarding being sacked: people can get sacked, but there are many, many, many people who are civil servants who would not be able to find gainful employment anywhere else due to their distinct lack of socal skills and communication skills.