How safe are jobs in the civil servants

Dominic Cummings is planning a massive reforms in the civil service.

A review of civil service employment terms is also expected. The Sunday Telegraph reported that Cummings, a long-standing critic of the civil service, would spearhead work to underpin radical reforms, including a review of hiring and firing processes. Cummings has claimed that a permanent civil service is “an idea for history books” and proposed the abolition of the role of permanent secretaries in his vision for civil service reform.

A series of media reports at the weekend said that there were plans for a departmental restructure in the new year once the government had got its Brexit deal approved by the new Conservative majority parliament. Possible changes floated include splitting responsibility for UK borders and immigration system off from the Home Office into a standalone department and merging the Department for International Trade with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Responsibility for climate change policy could also be moved back our of BEIS into its own ministry, which could in effect reverse Theresa May’s abolition of the Department for Energy and Climate Change in 2016. The Department for Exiting the EU would also be abolished, with responsibility for negotiations over the UK's future relationship with the EU being led by the Cabinet Office – as recommended by the Institute for Government last week.

Reply 1

Captainusa

I’d say digital roles are a safe bet. I’m working on a Brexit project at the moment but if things were to change in that area there are plenty more digital projects that need doing and I’d quickly be moved onto them.

I think if you are based in the hub regions or London then you’ll be always able to move onto something else during change. I work on a site with approximately 8000 people from HMRC, DWP, VOA and HSE so there is a lot of movement at all times anyway.

(edited 4 years ago)

Reply 2

username402722

I expect it is senior roles that will be affected if any, not junior ones.

Reply 3

Quady

You've almost answered your own question.

Pretty darn safe. Whether that will be the case in 25 years who knows.

As has been said on the thread these 'plans' are basically about the SCS. Pay would need to rise if the wider contractual are diminished. Perhaps not if the roles go more like America and become politicised.

Not sure how this would affect devolved administrations.

Reply 4

Quady

Original post by Captainusa

You dont fear TUPE outsourcing then...?

Surely the pendulum is due to swing back soon....

Reply 5

Captainusa

Original post by Quady

You dont fear TUPE outsourcing then...?

Surely the pendulum is due to swing back soon....

Not at the moment. The trend is still very much to build up internal capability in the IT/digital world. I’m a G7 now so if that did happen I’d just look to move into a different management role. I’ve only been a civil servant for 2 years but the older ones say change is pretty much constant but redundancies in our area (Newcastle) are rare.