Francis Maude pledges to change the culture of civil service recruitment

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has pledged to change the culture of recruitment of civil servants in the wake of today's National Audit Office report, Recruiting Civil Servants Efficiently.

The report - covered in today's Daily Telegraph and by the BBC - makes a number of criticisms of the inefficiency of Whitehall recruitment procedures and its retention of staff once they are recruited.

The report states:

• It typically takes 16 weeks to recruit a new civil servant, with internal costs of between £556 and £1,921.
• It should be possible to cut costs by 68%, saving £35 million a year across Whitehall.
• Between 14% and 52% of civil service recruits left within a year of being taken on, based on a study of the six largest employers in government.
• 40,000 central government jobs were recruited last year, but only a fraction were advertised to the public.

It states that “central government’s external recruitment processes do not fully deliver value for money” and goes on to criticise the lack of centrally held data on the cost of government recruitment.

Mr Maude has also separately established that of the 40,000 vacancies filled each year, only about 6,000 of those jobs are advertised on the Civil Service jobs extranet. Furthermore, only half of that figure are advertised on the section of that site which can be viewed by members of the public, in other words, fewer than one in ten of the vacancies.

Francis Maude reckons that this is not good enough and that advertising central government jobs to the public on the internet would save recruitment costs, highlight questionable positions and open up central government jobs to competition.

He concludes:

“It is unfair that central government jobs are being hidden from the public. It’s time to open up Whitehall’s closed job shop. Making greater use of the internet will save money, expose unnecessary bureaucracy and ensure healthy competition in the job market.”

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[Sally Roberts]

"of the 40,000 vacancies filled each year, only about 6,000 of those jobs are advertised on the Civil Service jobs extranet. Furthermore, only half of that figure are advertised on the section of that site which can be viewed by members of the public, in other words, fewer than one in ten of the vacancies."

This is shameful! Whilst all the media hoo-ha goes on about Parliamentarians employing family (many of whom despite the tarnishing of the image by such as the Conway Boys carry out their duties efficiently and well) this little "closed shop" is allowed to continue unchecked!

[Norm Brainer]

16 weeks?!
Is the person for the job chosen by the one who can wait the longest?

[Ross Warren]

This sends an important message to the real world of the 90%. It sends an important message to the unemployed. Lets hope that it sends a message to the party as a whole. Of course the justification seems to be cost rather than moral outrage but its a start.

[wtf]

Having attempted (and failed) the civil service fast stream process twice, it seems to me the entire process is designed to be as time wasting and convoluted as possible, with endless online personality tests, “e-inbox” tests, “competency” questionnaires, psychometric evaluations, ethnic diversity monitoring and other random tasks that do little if anything to distinguish who the best candidate might be. This method of recruitment brings little value to the civil service, other than giving an army of gobby females in recruitment non-jobs something to do.

I do think we need to address the poor quality of graduates going into the civil service. My understanding is that initiative is frowned upon and civil servants are quickly institutionalised into the old way of doing things. There seems to be a great deal of hubris and arrogance amongst the younger members of the civil service. Many civil servants see taxpayers’ money as theirs to spend by right, and there seems to be a bonus and rewards culture that is totally out of step with the talents these people have to offer.

I also think we need to look at the issue whereby civil servants still overwhelmingly come from the fee paying schools and Oxbridge. I fear this is something the shadow cabinet won’t want to grabble with given many of their own backgrounds, but I fear the old school tie tendency in Whitehall is reluctant to let real talent from different backgrounds shine through. This has been reduced somewhat by the token recruitment of ethnic minorities of below average intelligence on “diversity”, but these people will never be allowed to rise to the top.

These problems could be resolved by scrapping “diversity” policies and recruiting the best people on merit alone, without asking them to detail their race, sexual habits, etc. We should specify a minimum of at least 5 years experience in the private sector for all graduate employees. Recruitment should be open to the public and advertised, not through word of mouth or on the basis of the old school tie. Civil service recruitment should be through CV sifting by people who run the departments, not handed over to stupid females in "recruitment" to devise ever more complex and pointless games. And more senior posts need to be moved out of Whitehall and into other areas in the South East or the northern cities.

[Tony Makara]

This is very good news and will open up the possibility of careers in the civil service. There should also be a ban on political in-house appointments, how often we hear that some former party worker for the opposition has been vaulted into a considerable position in the civil service once that party becomes the government.

I have a friend in the civil service, a person of many years experience, and time after time I hear stories of how political upstarts bully their way, to see that certain things are done ahead of more pressing concerns, just to fulfill the political whim of a minister chasing headlines. This political interference in the workings of our civil service must end.

A general easing up of job-application procedures in other areas would help too. Of course there should be a time delay in sensitive areas like working with children, but why does it take up to six weeks for positions in local councils to be filled? The endless need for character and professional references, complicated and intrusive application forms, BURY MBC for example even asks applicants about their sexual preferences, its all too bureaucratic and creates too much of a logjam.

There must be a better way of fast-tracking people into non-sensitive jobs. Perhaps a quick interview is really all that is necessary for certain jobs?

[rugfish]

The only way he'll change the culture is to bring that culture into line with the normal employment culture which exists in this country where people are held accountable, can be sacked for misdemeanor and are rewarded no more or less favourably than any other employee in the private sector. Same goes for local and central government. Also, he could make a start by putting an end to nepotism which is rampant in the civil service ( not serve us ), which categorically discriminates against those are have no chance whatsoever of either hearing about much less being selected for a position which largely entails sitting on your arse getting paid by the taxpayers whilst shuffling out the way when things go wrong and leaving taxpayers to pick the bills up for both their mistakes and their fat pensions which are an anathema to any sense or standard of reasonableness.

[Jack Stone]

The first question Francis Maude should be asking is how many of the 40.000 jobs are really necessary.
An incoming Conservative government should order an independent audit of every job in Whitehall to see exactly if each job can be justified. I suspect that at the end of the audit the amount of jobs that could be axed will run into the thousands.

[Raj]

An incoming Conservative government should order an independent audit of every job in Whitehall to see exactly if each job can be justified.

I think that would be a bit extreme. Lots of cuts are already being made to workforce numbers. Besides, would it be a good idea to be slashing numbers by vast amounts in a recession with rising unemployment? These people would just go on to benefit. More cuts might be possible but I would do it on a department basis.

What I would support is opening up the vacancies to the wider population.

[Northern Conservative]

'The first question Francis Maude should be asking is how many of the 40,000 jobs are necessary?'

For the very first time I find myself in ageement with Jack Stone (12.35 today).

Lord (Digby) Jones (former Head of the CBI and enobled by Gordon Brown) recently stated that half of the Civil Service could be dispensed with and should be dispensed with, as it would have little effect on the the country!

Comments like those of Francis Maude are welcome, but I doubt an incoming Tory Government would have the incisiveness of Margaret Thatcher to remove a large slice of the Civil Service.

Never underestimate the power of our Civil Service to survive any internal changes our elected representatives would like to make!

[John]

I would expect a lot of time to be available for establishing a good recruitment method, as I would expect a total freeze for at least 5 years, before even a trickle of new blood was allowed.

[anon]

wtf @ 09.59 - you state that you failed the selection procedure twice. Hardly a surprise, when you consider your abusive language:

"This method of recruitment brings little value to the civil service, other than giving an army of gobby females in recruitment non-jobs something to do."

"Civil service recruitment should be through CV sifting by people who run the departments, not handed over to stupid females in "recruitment" to devise ever more complex and pointless games."

!!! Come on wtf, there's a reason you weren't selected - you weren't good enough

[Super Blue]

NorthernConservative,

I also agree with Jock Stale's post on this occasion - because it is the exact opposite of what he has spent the last four months writing!

Has he seen the light or had another Dallas-style face transplant?

[James Maskell]

Talks tough but I can bet that this is unlikely to happen. As said in the title of this article, its a cultural problem and cannot be changed by a single Government.

[tapestry]

The rate fo churning is staggering. No doubt the recruits who don't cooperate with the corruption and being told what to say and think Nulab-style, have to leave. Talking rubbish is excruciating for anyone with half a brain, no matter how high the pay.

[Lindsay Jenkins]

Francis Maude is the man who 'changed the culture' of the Conservative candidates' list.

Am I alone in expressing concern that he is the right man to 'change the culture' of civil service recruitment?

[Chris Hayes]

The high rate of losing staff is often related to low pay. Remember the lowest UK grades often qualify for income/family support! Further the specialist jobs that maggy so helpfully outsourced the majority without conducting any real analysis are even hard to recruit for and with good reason. If say you hire an IT specialist with a small boost beyond their assigned grade pay scale what stops this person being headhnted by one of the outfights that do all the IT consultancy for the government and being paid double? He has the inside knowledge and experience now and the fees paid to contractors are astronomical compared to staff salaries (the top ones can earn £100,000+ for a 2 day a week job, or on a shorter term basis up to £1,500 a day - and these are before you got onto lawyers pay) so they can easily double his pay.

Really I would scrap the grade system within the civil service, link pay to the difficulty/popularity of the job set by departmental/unit heads (they are supposed to be managers after all who have a handle on their budgets) and have an open recruitment service with wieghtings for those who have demonstrated the intergrety and other non comercial attributes we want our civil servants to have.
The UN manages to run external recruitments constantly (and get in some cases thousands of applicants) and it resolves the process in mere weeks (though of course they are often very corruption, but look past those cases :) ).