Reg reader? Work at the Home Office? Are you SURE? The number of Home Office IT staff has been slashed by one third, following the latest round of redundancies at the department, The Register can reveal. Currently the department has an 800-strong IT team, following its recent laying off of 107 staff. However, multiple sources have confirmed this is just the latest in a round …
"Middle managers can't spend too much time in meetings"
What's the betting that the bean counters and middle managers will have daily meetings to discuss the results of the zero-based budget review, and will come to the conclusion that while they have exactly the right number of bean counters and middle managers, they have far too many technically qualified people who actually do the work.
Of course in an ideal world, most of the technically qualified people who actually do the work would be building a B-Ark, while the rest of them would be concocting a story about the earth crashing into the sun or being eaten by a giant goat...
"How many of the those Home Office IT staff are actually real people"
Based upon experience in New Zealand when they tied the departments closer together to track down benefit fraud: Not as many real people as bank accounts (almost all benefit fraud turned out to be perpetrated by staff and there were a large number of phantom employees discovered)
The majority of IT staff in government are contract service managers
So.. there must be more contracts than real worker bees? Or does it take multiple "managers" to manage a contract? I'm guessing that they probably won't get the axe then.. must be the worker bees that will take the hit.
Many commentards over the years have observed that *effective* outsourcing requires that technical expertise be retained in the organisation so that one knows whether or not the wool is being pulled over one's eyes. So the Home Office ought to retain a sizeable technical staff.
Not saying that is the case here. Quite possible that the HO staff are there to pay each and every invoice submitted by the outsourced provider without question or quibble.
Yup exactly. What an insane way to run a business. But hey, it's a gov dept, its not my money. Oh wait, it blinking well is!
As a contractor I suppose I'll just make sure I find a gov contract with an insane day rate somewhere. Oh there's one over there, great, that was easy!
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I worked in local govt for many years.
(Don't suppose central govt is too much different).
1.) When ever front line staff, in any area, were reduced the work force in the department in question would creep up over the next year or two. But the new seats would be filled with managerial types, not front line workers. This was true for all departments that I saw.
2.) "Essential" new posts that could be permitted as an exception under the new budget rules all seemed to be beancounters or managers, not front line staff.
3.)When there had to be serious cuts a whole new level of managers would appear to do the deed.
Afterwards they'd still be there.
4.) The less direct work someone did with the users ( of whatever type or department) the more likely they would still be there after the cuts.
5.) Essential work would get into a backlog, then expensive agency staff would be employed. These would be in place on a pretty much permanent basis because the size of the "establishment" couldn't be increased by directly employing staff, under the rules. See 1 above.
6.) "Outsourced" work would need to have a manager employed to do something or other that involved lots of meeting, with the outsourcers, who often ending up costing more than the people they had replaced even though the staff they brought in were paid significantly less than the ones who had been doing the work. The senior front line staff still in post meanwhile kept being pulled off their proper job to deal with the day-to-day issues that the managers were meant to be managing.
This was also my experience. I was one of the expensive agency staff and was clearly going to have a job for life, but finally I realised that more and more was being given to me as they took out permanent skilled staff and replaced them with some sort of manager. I had to answer to every one of those managers on the 'projects' (aka BAU disguised for budgetary purposes), and very few could articulate what they wanted, by when, and for whom. Finally I said goodbye, and either some other agency monkey has replaced me, or a manager is sitting in my chair.
In Croydon Council they had (have?) a rule that any temp job that had existed for 4 years could be converted into a permanent one. In one instance this happened, but instead of the job going to the temp who had been doing it perfectly well for the last 4 years (and wanted to become permie) it mysteriously went to the 19-year old daughter of one of the female managers in the office.
What was it you said about Nigeria being 'fantastically corrupt' David Cameron? Everyone in the office (and the wider department beyond) in my example knew what had happened but no one trusted the whistle blower legislation to protect them from recriminations.
Before the outsourcing, the DWP had c.1500 mostly technical staff in IT. Now, they have c.1500 mostly non-technical staff in IT plus the outsourced contract.
Many of the outsourcing companies will be getting in contractors to do the work, and making a hefty amount on each body.
All that the outsourcing gives you is double the number of managers - one from the DWP and one from the outsourcing company to "manage" the contract, and then a contractor to do the work. Still, at least it isn't money wasted on employing the people to do the work.
Hell, the DWP could employ contractors on a better daily rate, cut out the outsourcing company (plus attendant manager), and still save a significant sum without having to increase the wages bill.
A friend worked for the Home Office, processing immigration applications. They diligently checked the credentials, contacted various spurious colleges, banks, all the proper checks... The result? They were told that they should have just stamped the forms, just like everyone else did, as that got them to meet the Government targets. No longer works there, unsurprisingly.
Different departments, same useless, incompetent standard of management.
"They were told that they should have just stamped the forms, just like everyone else did"
You missed the part about leaving them untouched on the desk for 6 months before stamping.
UK industry used to suffer horribly from "overmanning" and rotten management - One of the few benefits of Thatcher's reforms was that this got pretty much eliminated (Although there were a lot more nasties than benefits)
The memo on this never seemed to get through to the civil service.
On the other hand the UK govt is the single largest employer in a lot of areas and cutting out the deadwood would result in substantial unemployment, particularly in the northwest of England.
There's not many working for their internal HOIT department. Lots of savings there.
So how's the work being done? Outsourcing. To the cheapest bidder via G-Cloud. That frequently means overseas. Not so many savings there, but as it's been shifted to a different budget, who cares....
"Work at the Home Office"
= oxymoron
NO-ONE in the Home Office works
They spend too long in meetings / "research" / "planning" / building private empires. They don't have any time to carry out what you or I would regard as productive work. Sack the lot of them, no-one will notice,except for the reduced costs
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