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Not taking Responsibility
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"Be honest and blame brexit !" You might have to clarify that as I don't follow what you mean. I guess I could add similar stories about the EU being blamed for things that they had nothing to do with. What has Brexit been blamed for that has no connection to it? The point would still remain in blaming the consequences of your own actions on someone else whose job it actually is to clean up your mess... | |||
"Always someone else's fault, it seems: "Truss Plans ‘War’ on UK Civil Service ‘Waste’ to Save Billions" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-01/truss-plans-war-on-uk-civil-service-waste-to-save-billions#xj4y7vzkg "Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/civil-service-agency-workers-casualisation-b2197768.html "Cabinet ministers are blaming the Bank of England for soaring mortgage costs, according to reports." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mortgage-rates-rise-bank-england-b2198753.html "Tax cuts will push interest rates to 4%, BoA warns" https://www.ftadviser.com/fixed-income/2022/09/14/tax-cuts-will-push-interest-rates-to-4-boa-warns/ "UK Supreme Court ruled today that the Government’s decision to prorogue Parliament for five weeks was unlawful," "Judicial independence tainted by ministers, Commons inquiry finds" https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jun/08/judicial-independence-tainted-by-ministers-commons-inquiry-finds#amp_ct=1665325135275&_tf=From%20%251%24s&aoh=16653250984550&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fuk-news%2F2022%2Fjun%2F08%2Fjudicial-independence-tainted-by-ministers-commons-inquiry-finds https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/decision-of-the-supreme-court-on-the-prorogation-of-parliament/" Nothing to see move along you are free to go about your business, no illegal activity or crime has been committed, just the lawful acting unlawfully.   | |||
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"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle!" "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. | |||
"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed." Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient. | |||
"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient." Ok glad I waited until this second post. Under Labour the Civil Service became a very well paid career (both in terms of salary and overall package including pension, holiday entitlement, pat/mat leave, training etc). Labour recognised the need to compete with the private sector to attract the best. Since 2010 the Tories have only looked at the headline cost and have constantly eroded the overall package. The old saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” has to some extent come true (not entirely as many who seek out jobs in the Civil Service also do so due to a sense of civic/societal duty and wanting to make a difference, some others due to ability to make good contacts). The final salary pension was zapped by the Tories to an average earnings salary (still generous but no longer gold plated). The Civil Service has suffered a huge brain drain since 2010 with many highly-skilled people (especially in the tech space) leaving for far more highly paid roles in the private sector and/or going freelance contracting. This particularly affects project work, hence the article talking about “agency workers”. By way of an example, a senior technical architect can earn around £150-175k per year as a contractor or salaried in private sector. If the Civil Service wanted to secure them at a comparative rate (even taking account of pension) they would need to pay them as an SCS2 or even SCS3 grade (so around the same as a Director General or even a Permanent Secretary) which clearly won’t happen. | |||
"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient. Ok glad I waited until this second post. Under Labour the Civil Service became a very well paid career (both in terms of salary and overall package including pension, holiday entitlement, pat/mat leave, training etc). Labour recognised the need to compete with the private sector to attract the best. Since 2010 the Tories have only looked at the headline cost and have constantly eroded the overall package. The old saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” has to some extent come true (not entirely as many who seek out jobs in the Civil Service also do so due to a sense of civic/societal duty and wanting to make a difference, some others due to ability to make good contacts). The final salary pension was zapped by the Tories to an average earnings salary (still generous but no longer gold plated). The Civil Service has suffered a huge brain drain since 2010 with many highly-skilled people (especially in the tech space) leaving for far more highly paid roles in the private sector and/or going freelance contracting. This particularly affects project work, hence the article talking about “agency workers”. By way of an example, a senior technical architect can earn around £150-175k per year as a contractor or salaried in private sector. If the Civil Service wanted to secure them at a comparative rate (even taking account of pension) they would need to pay them as an SCS2 or even SCS3 grade (so around the same as a Director General or even a Permanent Secretary) which clearly won’t happen." I'm not convinced that is true. If you provide the job with the prestige and appreciation and flexibility that you could, people don't need as much money. Cash is a poor motivator. At 3/4 of those salaries plus motivation and the competence that reduces failed projects etc. Any additional upfront cost would easily make that up. Better to pay more and get the thing that you want than pay less and get nothing. Never ever accounted for by people who don't actually have to work and deliver. | |||
"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient. Ok glad I waited until this second post. Under Labour the Civil Service became a very well paid career (both in terms of salary and overall package including pension, holiday entitlement, pat/mat leave, training etc). Labour recognised the need to compete with the private sector to attract the best. Since 2010 the Tories have only looked at the headline cost and have constantly eroded the overall package. The old saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” has to some extent come true (not entirely as many who seek out jobs in the Civil Service also do so due to a sense of civic/societal duty and wanting to make a difference, some others due to ability to make good contacts). The final salary pension was zapped by the Tories to an average earnings salary (still generous but no longer gold plated). The Civil Service has suffered a huge brain drain since 2010 with many highly-skilled people (especially in the tech space) leaving for far more highly paid roles in the private sector and/or going freelance contracting. This particularly affects project work, hence the article talking about “agency workers”. By way of an example, a senior technical architect can earn around £150-175k per year as a contractor or salaried in private sector. If the Civil Service wanted to secure them at a comparative rate (even taking account of pension) they would need to pay them as an SCS2 or even SCS3 grade (so around the same as a Director General or even a Permanent Secretary) which clearly won’t happen." Also, pay rates below inflation for a decade hardly encourage a career in public service. As per my previous post the benefit to the public purse of motivated and well paid civil servants is made up in multiples when it comes to project cost and delivery. | |||
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"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient. Ok glad I waited until this second post. Under Labour the Civil Service became a very well paid career (both in terms of salary and overall package including pension, holiday entitlement, pat/mat leave, training etc). Labour recognised the need to compete with the private sector to attract the best. Since 2010 the Tories have only looked at the headline cost and have constantly eroded the overall package. The old saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” has to some extent come true (not entirely as many who seek out jobs in the Civil Service also do so due to a sense of civic/societal duty and wanting to make a difference, some others due to ability to make good contacts). The final salary pension was zapped by the Tories to an average earnings salary (still generous but no longer gold plated). The Civil Service has suffered a huge brain drain since 2010 with many highly-skilled people (especially in the tech space) leaving for far more highly paid roles in the private sector and/or going freelance contracting. This particularly affects project work, hence the article talking about “agency workers”. By way of an example, a senior technical architect can earn around £150-175k per year as a contractor or salaried in private sector. If the Civil Service wanted to secure them at a comparative rate (even taking account of pension) they would need to pay them as an SCS2 or even SCS3 grade (so around the same as a Director General or even a Permanent Secretary) which clearly won’t happen. I'm not convinced that is true. If you provide the job with the prestige and appreciation and flexibility that you could, people don't need as much money. Cash is a poor motivator. At 3/4 of those salaries plus motivation and the competence that reduces failed projects etc. Any additional upfront cost would easily make that up. Better to pay more and get the thing that you want than pay less and get nothing. Never ever accounted for by people who don't actually have to work and deliver." You may not be convinced it is true but I know it is. Obviously there will be outliers in all things but, as per example I gave, the highest grade possible for a Tech Arch is Grade 6 that comes with a salary b/w £55-75k. Digital/technology professions in most departments also get a non-pensionable uplift of up to another £10k. Even factoring in the employer pension and 25 days hols, it simply does not compare to the package they can achieve in private sector or as a contractor. So the CS are finding it almost impossible to attract suitably skilled talent (and worse, retain them). That is then compounded by CS25 which has put in place a recruitment freeze to reduce civil servant headcount to 2016 levels. As I said, you cannot square that circle. The volume and scale of projects is such that there needs to be a certain headcount. But if you cannot recruit civil servants AND if those you have are not of sufficient experience and skills, then your only option is suppliers and contractors. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! " Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article)." To add, there are examples of the CS using “agency staff” for some operational roles that could/should be done by permanent Civil Servants. One of the best is the Passport Office. They had unprecedented demand post Covid. The only way to gear up quickly to try and deal with demand was via agency staff. Most of the year (and in normal years) they do not need those extra staff so permies would ne a waste of money! | |||
"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient. Ok glad I waited until this second post. Under Labour the Civil Service became a very well paid career (both in terms of salary and overall package including pension, holiday entitlement, pat/mat leave, training etc). Labour recognised the need to compete with the private sector to attract the best. Since 2010 the Tories have only looked at the headline cost and have constantly eroded the overall package. The old saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” has to some extent come true (not entirely as many who seek out jobs in the Civil Service also do so due to a sense of civic/societal duty and wanting to make a difference, some others due to ability to make good contacts). The final salary pension was zapped by the Tories to an average earnings salary (still generous but no longer gold plated). The Civil Service has suffered a huge brain drain since 2010 with many highly-skilled people (especially in the tech space) leaving for far more highly paid roles in the private sector and/or going freelance contracting. This particularly affects project work, hence the article talking about “agency workers”. By way of an example, a senior technical architect can earn around £150-175k per year as a contractor or salaried in private sector. If the Civil Service wanted to secure them at a comparative rate (even taking account of pension) they would need to pay them as an SCS2 or even SCS3 grade (so around the same as a Director General or even a Permanent Secretary) which clearly won’t happen. I'm not convinced that is true. If you provide the job with the prestige and appreciation and flexibility that you could, people don't need as much money. Cash is a poor motivator. At 3/4 of those salaries plus motivation and the competence that reduces failed projects etc. Any additional upfront cost would easily make that up. Better to pay more and get the thing that you want than pay less and get nothing. Never ever accounted for by people who don't actually have to work and deliver. You may not be convinced it is true but I know it is. Obviously there will be outliers in all things but, as per example I gave, the highest grade possible for a Tech Arch is Grade 6 that comes with a salary b/w £55-75k. Digital/technology professions in most departments also get a non-pensionable uplift of up to another £10k. Even factoring in the employer pension and 25 days hols, it simply does not compare to the package they can achieve in private sector or as a contractor. So the CS are finding it almost impossible to attract suitably skilled talent (and worse, retain them). That is then compounded by CS25 which has put in place a recruitment freeze to reduce civil servant headcount to 2016 levels. As I said, you cannot square that circle. The volume and scale of projects is such that there needs to be a certain headcount. But if you cannot recruit civil servants AND if those you have are not of sufficient experience and skills, then your only option is suppliers and contractors. " You don't need to attract anyone if you develop the skills in-house as used to be the case. Again, I think that you are placing money above purpose and appreciation Those in the public service have always been motivated by different things. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article)." The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). To add, there are examples of the CS using “agency staff” for some operational roles that could/should be done by permanent Civil Servants. One of the best is the Passport Office. They had unprecedented demand post Covid. The only way to gear up quickly to try and deal with demand was via agency staff. Most of the year (and in normal years) they do not need those extra staff so permies would ne a waste of money!" The civil service has been cut relentlessly for decades. They were below what was needed before COVID both in numbers and retained knowledge. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house?" I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). To add, there are examples of the CS using “agency staff” for some operational roles that could/should be done by permanent Civil Servants. One of the best is the Passport Office. They had unprecedented demand post Covid. The only way to gear up quickly to try and deal with demand was via agency staff. Most of the year (and in normal years) they do not need those extra staff so permies would ne a waste of money! The civil service has been cut relentlessly for decades. They were below what was needed before COVID both in numbers and retained knowledge." Agreed | |||
"The point on... Government spent over £3 billion [over three years] on temporary agency staff to do civil service jobs Is both misleading and also shows the nonsensical approach the Tories have taken. The VAST majority of “agency workers” are actually “contractors” with high end skills in project delivery, particularly in the technology space. These highly skilled workers simply are not available within the Civil Service because the Govt refuses to pay market rate salaries to attract these people. There is a significant recruitment problem for big programmes/projects because the private sector can always outbid for highly skilled talent. And then added to that the Tories want to reduce the number of Civil Servants to 2016 levels despite the volume of work not decreasing. It is impossible to square that circle! "High end skills" like those of Dido Harding who was in charge during Talk Talk's massive data breech before coming in to oversee the massive failure of a COVID app? I think you may be conflicted in your opinion here. You may well be very competent in delivering these services, but why should the Civil Service not have this skill set in-house? It's not "specialist" if it is always needed. Sorry, started writing before I finished reading. Government does not have to pay market rates because it can balance with pensions and working conditions. The problem is them having to continually make cuts due to poor decisions and demotivating the workforce by telling them that they are lazy and inefficient. Ok glad I waited until this second post. Under Labour the Civil Service became a very well paid career (both in terms of salary and overall package including pension, holiday entitlement, pat/mat leave, training etc). Labour recognised the need to compete with the private sector to attract the best. Since 2010 the Tories have only looked at the headline cost and have constantly eroded the overall package. The old saying “pay peanuts get monkeys” has to some extent come true (not entirely as many who seek out jobs in the Civil Service also do so due to a sense of civic/societal duty and wanting to make a difference, some others due to ability to make good contacts). The final salary pension was zapped by the Tories to an average earnings salary (still generous but no longer gold plated). The Civil Service has suffered a huge brain drain since 2010 with many highly-skilled people (especially in the tech space) leaving for far more highly paid roles in the private sector and/or going freelance contracting. This particularly affects project work, hence the article talking about “agency workers”. By way of an example, a senior technical architect can earn around £150-175k per year as a contractor or salaried in private sector. If the Civil Service wanted to secure them at a comparative rate (even taking account of pension) they would need to pay them as an SCS2 or even SCS3 grade (so around the same as a Director General or even a Permanent Secretary) which clearly won’t happen. I'm not convinced that is true. If you provide the job with the prestige and appreciation and flexibility that you could, people don't need as much money. Cash is a poor motivator. At 3/4 of those salaries plus motivation and the competence that reduces failed projects etc. Any additional upfront cost would easily make that up. Better to pay more and get the thing that you want than pay less and get nothing. Never ever accounted for by people who don't actually have to work and deliver. You may not be convinced it is true but I know it is. Obviously there will be outliers in all things but, as per example I gave, the highest grade possible for a Tech Arch is Grade 6 that comes with a salary b/w £55-75k. Digital/technology professions in most departments also get a non-pensionable uplift of up to another £10k. Even factoring in the employer pension and 25 days hols, it simply does not compare to the package they can achieve in private sector or as a contractor. So the CS are finding it almost impossible to attract suitably skilled talent (and worse, retain them). That is then compounded by CS25 which has put in place a recruitment freeze to reduce civil servant headcount to 2016 levels. As I said, you cannot square that circle. The volume and scale of projects is such that there needs to be a certain headcount. But if you cannot recruit civil servants AND if those you have are not of sufficient experience and skills, then your only option is suppliers and contractors. You don't need to attract anyone if you develop the skills in-house as used to be the case. Again, I think that you are placing money above purpose and appreciation Those in the public service have always been motivated by different things." You are talking theoretically and I am talking about the current reality. Of course there are people who worked or are working in the CS who are motivated by more than money (I already said that further up) but there is a tipping point that was reached some years back. The challenge the CS have had is that when they train up inhouse skills, after a while these people realise how much more they can earn outside the CS (or even going freelance and contracting back into the CS) and leave. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). To add, there are examples of the CS using “agency staff” for some operational roles that could/should be done by permanent Civil Servants. One of the best is the Passport Office. They had unprecedented demand post Covid. The only way to gear up quickly to try and deal with demand was via agency staff. Most of the year (and in normal years) they do not need those extra staff so permies would ne a waste of money! The civil service has been cut relentlessly for decades. They were below what was needed before COVID both in numbers and retained knowledge. Agreed" However,off topic. It's about blaming others for creating problems they created. Just like sacking Police and nurses and then expecting credit for replacing them again (with the additional cost of training and the loss of experience). | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). To add, there are examples of the CS using “agency staff” for some operational roles that could/should be done by permanent Civil Servants. One of the best is the Passport Office. They had unprecedented demand post Covid. The only way to gear up quickly to try and deal with demand was via agency staff. Most of the year (and in normal years) they do not need those extra staff so permies would ne a waste of money! The civil service has been cut relentlessly for decades. They were below what was needed before COVID both in numbers and retained knowledge. Agreed However,off topic. It's about blaming others for creating problems they created. Just like sacking Police and nurses and then expecting credit for replacing them again (with the additional cost of training and the loss of experience)." Again agreed. Modus Operandi for the Tories: - Reduce the number of police then blame the police for not being effective - Remove training grants and real time lay reductions for nurses and doctors and pension raid, see numbers drop, then blame NHS for not being effective (and push towards privatisation) - insert other public sector organisations Rinse and repeat Etc etc | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment." The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route." They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not." Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. " You are accepting the status quo. Why should it not be a core skill for the state if it is always involved in all of these areas? You don't think that these suppliers need managing by a knowledgeable customer? | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. " This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. You are accepting the status quo. Why should it not be a core skill for the state if it is always involved in all of these areas? You don't think that these suppliers need managing by a knowledgeable customer?" The suppliers are managed by internal teams as part of the contract and delivery, which is set out in the schedules. The pointI have obviously not got across, is technologies are changing very quickly and consultancy firms develop a lot of these technologies or partner the tech firm developing these technologies. As part of the delivery, the knowledge of the tech will be transferred to internal support teams to manage and develop or it will be outsourced if the skillset is not available in-house. These projects cost millions, and are very complex and need specialist assistance to design and deliver. Internally, smaller projects will be managed and can be managed, these types of projects are usually for technologies and services that exist in the business today. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw." That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering." I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams." To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. " Yep. The other benefit is the breadth of experience working for different clients can bring rather than “more of the same”. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. " Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them... | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them..." Challenging the rationale is not the same saying everyone else should not think for themselves. I don’t know where you get the idea that nobody likes consultants and that they don’t get trained or are accountable that is far from the case in my experience. Your response sounds like you don’t like consultants. Why is that…??? | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them... Challenging the rationale is not the same saying everyone else should not think for themselves. I don’t know where you get the idea that nobody likes consultants and that they don’t get trained or are accountable that is far from the case in my experience. Your response sounds like you don’t like consultants. Why is that…???" Nice attempt and implying that I have an axe to grind. I have been a consultant and managed them. Good and bad. I know that it is perfectly possible to have in-house competence. It is, in fact, a necessity to successfully manage external suppliers of any sort. Arguments that say that you can skip training and building and expertise internally and just bring in consultants for expertise are ultimately more expensive. You even pay for them to learn even more. In general terms, consultancy is no longer getting one or two genuine experts to provide an impartial view on a strategy. It is subcontracting out large packages of work to new graduates at high fees to do work defined more by the supplier that has been hired than the organisation doing the hiring. Are you arguing for the Civil service not to have substantial understanding of the areas that they are spending large amounts of money on? | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them... Challenging the rationale is not the same saying everyone else should not think for themselves. I don’t know where you get the idea that nobody likes consultants and that they don’t get trained or are accountable that is far from the case in my experience. Your response sounds like you don’t like consultants. Why is that…??? Nice attempt and implying that I have an axe to grind. I have been a consultant and managed them. Good and bad. I know that it is perfectly possible to have in-house competence. It is, in fact, a necessity to successfully manage external suppliers of any sort. Arguments that say that you can skip training and building and expertise internally and just bring in consultants for expertise are ultimately more expensive. You even pay for them to learn even more. In general terms, consultancy is no longer getting one or two genuine experts to provide an impartial view on a strategy. It is subcontracting out large packages of work to new graduates at high fees to do work defined more by the supplier that has been hired than the organisation doing the hiring. Are you arguing for the Civil service not to have substantial understanding of the areas that they are spending large amounts of money on?" I think there is a misalignment between what the consultants are working on in some of these examples here. My experience in this field is large scale projects delivering new technologies. The project size in terms of people can run into 100 - 200, not counting the internal staff and mainly for FTSE 100. The business will own PMO functions to keep a grip on expenditure and timeframes. Once the solution has been designed and delivered it usually sits with the business to manage and develop as part of BAU. The operational teams within these businesses are already maxed out looking after and developing what resides on the technology estate day to day. They would not be scaled or have the end to end experience of designing and building technologies they have never been exposed to. I know colleagues who work for gov departments such as the Home Office, doing the same type of work I mention above. In your example, what is the work of the consultants? | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them... Challenging the rationale is not the same saying everyone else should not think for themselves. I don’t know where you get the idea that nobody likes consultants and that they don’t get trained or are accountable that is far from the case in my experience. Your response sounds like you don’t like consultants. Why is that…??? Nice attempt and implying that I have an axe to grind. I have been a consultant and managed them. Good and bad. I know that it is perfectly possible to have in-house competence. It is, in fact, a necessity to successfully manage external suppliers of any sort. Arguments that say that you can skip training and building and expertise internally and just bring in consultants for expertise are ultimately more expensive. You even pay for them to learn even more. In general terms, consultancy is no longer getting one or two genuine experts to provide an impartial view on a strategy. It is subcontracting out large packages of work to new graduates at high fees to do work defined more by the supplier that has been hired than the organisation doing the hiring. Are you arguing for the Civil service not to have substantial understanding of the areas that they are spending large amounts of money on? I think there is a misalignment between what the consultants are working on in some of these examples here. My experience in this field is large scale projects delivering new technologies. The project size in terms of people can run into 100 - 200, not counting the internal staff and mainly for FTSE 100. The business will own PMO functions to keep a grip on expenditure and timeframes. Once the solution has been designed and delivered it usually sits with the business to manage and develop as part of BAU. The operational teams within these businesses are already maxed out looking after and developing what resides on the technology estate day to day. They would not be scaled or have the end to end experience of designing and building technologies they have never been exposed to. I know colleagues who work for gov departments such as the Home Office, doing the same type of work I mention above. In your example, what is the work of the consultants? " Your describing outsourced development and deployment. That is not consultancy. You did not answer the direct question about any large organisation having the skill and knowledge in-house to create and understand their own strategy and be able to hold suppliers fully to account. If you do not invest in this capacity in-house then you will be over budget and over time every time. As almost every Government project is. Industry is always open to secondments, which was the traditional method of the Civil Service gaining broad experience. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them... Challenging the rationale is not the same saying everyone else should not think for themselves. I don’t know where you get the idea that nobody likes consultants and that they don’t get trained or are accountable that is far from the case in my experience. Your response sounds like you don’t like consultants. Why is that…??? Nice attempt and implying that I have an axe to grind. I have been a consultant and managed them. Good and bad. I know that it is perfectly possible to have in-house competence. It is, in fact, a necessity to successfully manage external suppliers of any sort. Arguments that say that you can skip training and building and expertise internally and just bring in consultants for expertise are ultimately more expensive. You even pay for them to learn even more. In general terms, consultancy is no longer getting one or two genuine experts to provide an impartial view on a strategy. It is subcontracting out large packages of work to new graduates at high fees to do work defined more by the supplier that has been hired than the organisation doing the hiring. Are you arguing for the Civil service not to have substantial understanding of the areas that they are spending large amounts of money on? I think there is a misalignment between what the consultants are working on in some of these examples here. My experience in this field is large scale projects delivering new technologies. The project size in terms of people can run into 100 - 200, not counting the internal staff and mainly for FTSE 100. The business will own PMO functions to keep a grip on expenditure and timeframes. Once the solution has been designed and delivered it usually sits with the business to manage and develop as part of BAU. The operational teams within these businesses are already maxed out looking after and developing what resides on the technology estate day to day. They would not be scaled or have the end to end experience of designing and building technologies they have never been exposed to. I know colleagues who work for gov departments such as the Home Office, doing the same type of work I mention above. In your example, what is the work of the consultants? Your describing outsourced development and deployment. That is not consultancy. You did not answer the direct question about any large organisation having the skill and knowledge in-house to create and understand their own strategy and be able to hold suppliers fully to account. If you do not invest in this capacity in-house then you will be over budget and over time every time. As almost every Government project is. Industry is always open to secondments, which was the traditional method of the Civil Service gaining broad experience." I know what I'm describing and it is consultancy. There is no way on earth in-house technical staff hired to look after the IT stacks of business or public sector department have the skillsets or knowledge to build / design and implement large scale new technologies. Data science and AI as an example. The public and private sectors need large IT consultancies to design and deliver against their existing capabilities. Consultants such as myself will work with the clients to establish their capabilities, build ROI forecasts and ensure the solution is meeting the brief of the client. This is an independent consultancy role, working for IT consultancies who also need skillset beyond the Dev. Sometimes they have a PMO function, the may have a service management function too, but if they do not, they will be provided that if needed in the delivery, all based on their capabilities. What area of expertise do you have in consultancy, it is not Technology, so what is it and why do you believe everything should be in-house? The costs would be astronomical and nothing would ever get delivered, just like the 90' and 00's. | |||
"When talking about the civil service I think you need to be very careful as those who work in Whitehall, which is what most people think of, is a minuscule amount of the total number Most work in very regional offices, got example, the biggest employer in Northern Ireland is the civil service, because they deal with every in house for their own region! which is why when truss talked about regional pay, what that is basically code for is pay people living in the north less!!! Agreed. I am specifically talking about projects, and in particular large scale complex programmes (which account for a lot of the cost related to “agency staff” as per article). The Government always has large scale, complex projects. So, why does the Government not have that skill in-house? I just explained that in my earlier posts. It has suffered a brain drain since 2010 without having the tools to attract sufficient talent to reverse the trend. Add to that the Tories apparent ongoing war against the Civil Service and criticism, it has created a toxic environment. The reason they don't have the skills in-house is the same for both public and private sector. All large scale project deliveries are managed and delivered by consultancies, such as Deloitte. Some public and private businesses will hire contract staff directly to manage the workload the project delivers. The knowledge of the system / infrastructure etc only transfers in-house once the delivery has been completed, unless they decided to go the managed service route. They don't have to be. That's the point. A choice has been made to work this way. Internal knowledge and capability has been run down so the skill set does not even remain to be able to understand if their suppliers are taking the taxpayer for a ride or not. Large scale technical / digital projects do, the skillsets needed to bring in new services like these sit with consultancies. The technologies for solutions will be different too, they need multiple expertise and skill sets to deliver it. They tend to have people who can develop and support it once it has been delivered, unless they pay for a managed service. The skills needed to deliver and define these large initiatives are not needed all of the time and are the core business for consultancies, not the core business for the public sector. This is generally true but not always. There was a concerted effort to break the monopoly of the big consultancies by creating frameworks that encouraged more SMEs. The challenge here is the potential for having multiple suppliers working on different workstreams or projects within a programme. That requires the Govt dept to act as system integrator. Add in GDS and Agile and it has made for a complex jigsaw. That is more delivery than design. Most organisations have delivery teams, however even some of those teams can be a managed service offering. I can only go on what I have experienced but I don’t agree most (govt) organisations have delivery teams. In will vary between dept of course but in my experience there is a heavy reliance on contingent labour for all the reasons discussed so far. This will continue to be the case with CS25 headcount restrictions. Re design - I have only seen blended teams. To actually develop “in-house” skills you need to have the in house skills in the first place. Developing these skills doesn’t happen overnight especially for complex technical projects. It is often better to bring in contractors for this kind of work as they often bring a different approach to project and problem solving that can be absent using in-house skills. As “we always do it this way” mentality can be present in big organisations. Contractors can bring a different perspective due to experience in multiple different organisations. As a contractor both in the private and public sector my experience was often sort in providing a different view point and challenging the status quo. Well done you in keeping your job and advising everyone else that they shouldn't try and think for themselves. Large companies can be every bit as stupid as to place all of their trust in others with no ability to question them or hold them to account. Why do you think nobody likes consultants? Because they don't get trained. They don't get listened to. They buy someone external in, because nobody in house could possibly know enough to even question them... Challenging the rationale is not the same saying everyone else should not think for themselves. I don’t know where you get the idea that nobody likes consultants and that they don’t get trained or are accountable that is far from the case in my experience. Your response sounds like you don’t like consultants. Why is that…??? Nice attempt and implying that I have an axe to grind. I have been a consultant and managed them. Good and bad. I know that it is perfectly possible to have in-house competence. It is, in fact, a necessity to successfully manage external suppliers of any sort. Arguments that say that you can skip training and building and expertise internally and just bring in consultants for expertise are ultimately more expensive. You even pay for them to learn even more. In general terms, consultancy is no longer getting one or two genuine experts to provide an impartial view on a strategy. It is subcontracting out large packages of work to new graduates at high fees to do work defined more by the supplier that has been hired than the organisation doing the hiring. Are you arguing for the Civil service not to have substantial understanding of the areas that they are spending large amounts of money on? I think there is a misalignment between what the consultants are working on in some of these examples here. My experience in this field is large scale projects delivering new technologies. The project size in terms of people can run into 100 - 200, not counting the internal staff and mainly for FTSE 100. The business will own PMO functions to keep a grip on expenditure and timeframes. Once the solution has been designed and delivered it usually sits with the business to manage and develop as part of BAU. The operational teams within these businesses are already maxed out looking after and developing what resides on the technology estate day to day. They would not be scaled or have the end to end experience of designing and building technologies they have never been exposed to. I know colleagues who work for gov departments such as the Home Office, doing the same type of work I mention above. In your example, what is the work of the consultants? Your describing outsourced development and deployment. That is not consultancy. You did not answer the direct question about any large organisation having the skill and knowledge in-house to create and understand their own strategy and be able to hold suppliers fully to account. If you do not invest in this capacity in-house then you will be over budget and over time every time. As almost every Government project is. Industry is always open to secondments, which was the traditional method of the Civil Service gaining broad experience. I know what I'm describing and it is consultancy. There is no way on earth in-house technical staff hired to look after the IT stacks of business or public sector department have the skillsets or knowledge to build / design and implement large scale new technologies. Data science and AI as an example. The public and private sectors need large IT consultancies to design and deliver against their existing capabilities. Consultants such as myself will work with the clients to establish their capabilities, build ROI forecasts and ensure the solution is meeting the brief of the client. This is an independent consultancy role, working for IT consultancies who also need skillset beyond the Dev. Sometimes they have a PMO function, the may have a service management function too, but if they do not, they will be provided that if needed in the delivery, all based on their capabilities. What area of expertise do you have in consultancy, it is not Technology, so what is it and why do you believe everything should be in-house? The costs would be astronomical and nothing would ever get delivered, just like the 90' and 00's. " The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. | |||
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"Jacob Rees-Mogg says market turmoil not due to mini-budget "Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed market turmoil is not linked to the mini-budget in which the chancellor announced big tax cuts without the usual analysis of the economic impact." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63230001" The son of the author of the book on how to get rich from disaster capitalism! | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it." A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. " Your sort of "consultants" it seems. "Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61020075 | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. Your sort of "consultants" it seems. "Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61020075" Well done, now how about digging out info on the thousands of successful solutions that are delivered every year?  | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. Your sort of "consultants" it seems. "Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61020075 Well done, now how about digging out info on the thousands of successful solutions that are delivered every year? "...and the thousands that fail? What is your objection to having in-house knowledge to be able to hold suppliers responsible? Oh yes, you're a supplier  | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. Your sort of "consultants" it seems. "Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61020075 Well done, now how about digging out info on the thousands of successful solutions that are delivered every year?
...and the thousands that fail?
What is your objection to having in-house knowledge to be able to hold suppliers responsible?
Oh yes, you're a supplier "Why the spite? Are you overlooked or not listened too in real life? I know where I would place my money  | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. Your sort of "consultants" it seems. "Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61020075 Well done, now how about digging out info on the thousands of successful solutions that are delivered every year?
...and the thousands that fail?
What is your objection to having in-house knowledge to be able to hold suppliers responsible?
Oh yes, you're a supplier
Why the spite?
Are you overlooked or not listened too in real life?
I know where I would place my money"There's no "spite" or dodge direct questions on my part nor a misplaced attempt to imply that I have an axe to grind. What is your objection to customers having in-house knowledge to be able to hold suppliers to account other than being one of those suppliers? | |||
"The consultancy that I have sat on both sides of has and is, deeply technical and involves both consulting and professional services provision. I am perfectly able to distinguish between the two. I am also perfectly able to identify when a company has adequate in-house knowledge to hold their suppliers to account and when they do not. That is the same in both the private and public sectors. When you subcontract out your strategy and and project management and delivery and define and control nothing yourself, you will fail. The failure to grow and retain knowledge and talent within the civil service has led to the chronic spending and delivery failures from the 80s to the present day. The poor pay and conditions and constant criticism of those in public service means that it no longer attracts the best talent. You really seem to be advocating that their is no value in the a private company or a Government have any idea of what should be done and should just trust their supplier. If not, then tell me what you do mean as you seem to personally be doing very well out of it. A public sector or private sector organisation, want to improve, be more efficient or maybe automate. They need advice, consultancy. Why? Because it is not their core strength, it is others core strength and I consult on options, outcomes, returns, capabilities and all of this is turned into a project based on the desire and guidance of the client. The client will have in-house views, and will make decisions on the solution based on the information provided at executive steering boards and other forums. I have no idea why you believe every business and public sector has these capabilities in-house, why would they pay for this skillset all of the time when it is only needed for unique projects that spin up and last maybe 2 years? As for doing well out of it, I do or I wouldn't do it. It is often a thankless task, met with resistance from senior management that are empire building and further down the organisational structure from employees who don't want to change. The upper echelons often don't want to communicate or if they do they leave it to mid tier managers who often lack the information or steer to be effective. Your sort of "consultants" it seems. "Fujitsu: How a Japanese firm became part of the Post Office scandal" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61020075 Well done, now how about digging out info on the thousands of successful solutions that are delivered every year?
...and the thousands that fail?
What is your objection to having in-house knowledge to be able to hold suppliers responsible?
Oh yes, you're a supplier
Why the spite?
Are you overlooked or not listened too in real life?
I know where I would place my money"'An underlying lack of skills in the civil service contributes to much of the ineffectiveness and inefficiency that “afflicts” projects and programmes across Whitehall, with some that the Public Accounts Committee scrutinises “plagued by the same issues year after year”.' 'the Public Accounts Committee says that rather than developing and retaining in-house skills and expertise, Government is often “too quick to spend money on consultants to undertake work that could actually be better done by existing civil servants”.' '“Government’s preferred response to failing projects is too often to pay out billions to consultants rather than investing in developing skills, expertise and knowledge in public services. This short-term approach does nothing to improve the civil service’s capacity and capability for the future. Instead it is a constant drain on public funds with little evidence of benefits."' https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/127/public-accounts-committee/news/137833/government-dependence-on-pricey-consultants-failing-to-get-major-projects-on-track/ | |||
