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

Well, that explains a lot. I wondered what was going on when I went to sign on the other week and was told of vacancies within the Dept. of Work and Pensions itself. Although the pay was very poor, I was interested enough to ring up and get an application form. But the form was full of questions about how good you were at working under pressure and prioritising a heavy workload. Combined with the abuse I've sometimes seen staff being subjected to at Jobcentres and benefit offices, it put me off applying.

And now the civil servants are on strike in protest against their lousy conditions and a derisory pay offer: see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3491407.stm for details. Meanwhile, the Tories are bragging about how they'd 'cut bureaucracy' to save money, which would presumably mean even fewer civil servants doing even more work. It was a pretty dire job when I did it in the late 1980s, and it sounds like it's got worse since then.

I wish them well with the strike. Who'd be a low-ranking civil servant? Not me, that's for sure...

the way the tories will cut the bureaucracy is to privatise it and contract it out - so there will be less civil servants but they will (arguably) be doing less work (overall, not individually).

for example - sell off the hospitals and all of a sudden all those hospital staff, from actual doctors and nurses through to the admin, are no longer "civil servants" but are paid through external contracting funds - a very sleight of hand way of cutting bureaucracy. sneaky, underhand, less efficient and a real pain in the arse in terms of undermining the accountability of government (can't get that hip replacement? well we (the govt) don't own the hospitals anymore so it's not really our fault - next!).

sorry if that's patronising. i get mad!