A lot has happened in recent months, including publication of the Civil Service Reform Plan in June which you can view here: http://www.civilservice.gov.
Another question I’ve been asked is whether I have done enough to stand up to media criticism about the civil service. I have a responsibility to challenge unfair and inaccurate reporting and to promote all of the excellent work we do, and I hope people feel that is what I’ve been doing. It would be useful to know if not and, if not, what more you think is needed. But I strongly believe that we all have responsibility for being ambassadors for the civil service.
Civil Service Live took place earlier this month, and I wanted to thank all those who took part one way or another – whether contributing to a stall, joining in discussions, presenting at one of the sessions, or just coming along to learn more. I would like to hear you views about what you most liked about the event (and previous events if you participated in these), and to use it to re-launch the event next year. Please do let me have your thoughts.
More recently, I was profoundly disappointed to hear that the Public and Commercial Services Union has decided to strike on the eve of the Olympics. The eyes of the world are upon us and the whole country is uniting to make sure that everyone visiting London has the great experience they deserve.
Around 70,000 volunteer Games Makers will be helping to deliver the Olympics. Many of those are taking leave from their day jobs to get involved. Moreover, hundreds of civil servants have worked for months to prepare all the events, transport and security associated with this huge undertaking. These civil servants will be working throughout the summer to ensure everything goes to plan. I hope that people recognise this and do not judge us all by the actions of a few.
Contingency arrangements are of course being put in place to ensure we deal with people coming through our borders as smoothly as possible. And I am confident this will happen – as I said in my last blog, staff worked very long hours to manage peak arrivals during the strike in May, and prevented 25 people attempting to evade our border controls. But even at this late hour I hope that border staff will think again before taking action.
UPDATE:
I am pleased to hear that the Public and Commercial Services Union has decided to call off its strike which was due to take place tomorrow, on the eve of the Olympics. This is a welcome development, and ensures we can concentrate on delivering the best possible service to our customers.
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I welcome Sir Bobs comments on both his challenging the attacks on the Civil Service and Civil Service Live event.
As someone who has been watching the events from afar I would love to have had the chance to attend a prior event or even a future one. However I along with the majority of Civil Servants don’t live or work in London and due to budgetary restraints we can not afford for staff to travel up (and probably require staying overnight).
Has any consideration been given to allowing some of us poor people out in the sticks access to a central pot to fund the associated T & S?
Mark Serwotka’s response to the Daily Mail miraofnsmition is commendable but I would have worded it in much stronger terms than he has. Frankly, I’m sick of the government and media witch hunt against civil servants. The misbelief that we sit drinking tea all day and have cushy numbers’ is a fallacy. What the media and the government fail to recognise is that for every post that is cut those that are left become more and more overburdened and as a result less and less actually gets done. This certainly applies to where I work where we have a permanent backlog which we will never clear, and one which grows exponentially with each passing week. On top of this we are inundated with corporate claptrap generated by overpaid consultants who are paid to bolster the ego’s of those at the top who falsely believe that a civil service department is a business’ with customers’ and clients’. Wake up and smell the coffe guys WE ARE CIVIL SERVICE DEPARTMENTS, NOT BUSINESSES. By the time the mandarins responsible for generating this insidious attack on government departments and their efficiency which is perfectly serviceable without the injection of flase corporate ideals it will be too late. I hope to see in my lifetime a volatile backlash against this kind of movement, the outcome of which will leave those in charge deeply embarrassed and which will force them to significantly retrench their corporate ideals and return the civil service to sanity and unhindered productivity.