Apparently to help with the 'cost of living crisis'.
So no windfall tax just sacking staff to help. What are the odds that a private company who has donated to this government will take over the gap it leaves?
We live in a clown country.
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Apparently to help with the 'cost of living crisis'.
So no windfall tax just sacking staff to help. What are the odds that a private company who has donated to this government will take over the gap it leaves?
We live in a clown country.
There's nothing like being unemployed to make living more affordable.
Jacob Rees-Mogg was on R4 this am explaining that the additional civil servants taken on since 2016 to help post Brexit trade negotiations and to manage Covid19 will mean the reduction could be made in those areas and shouldn't affect every day services. Yesterday, on the same program, was another Tory minister (whose name I forget) explaining that levelling up was as big an issue for this government as Covid was. If that is the case then why aren't the Covid19 / Brexit civil servants who now find themselves superfluous to requirement being moved over to the governments flagship project?
All we have had so far is an announcement with no actual detail, so it is hard to comment on this until such time as we see what kind of meat is on the bones.
One thing is for certain, never put it past a Tory government to use any excuse to cut the size of the state.
As for Rees-Mogg, has a man ever wanted you to throw the wireless out the window when listening to it? I'm sure he's a nice person but he comes across as a right smug arsehole.
On this part, it's the nature of the work really. Covid and especially Brexit were pretty admin heavy. Levelling up shouldnt be. In fact, dare I say, it would work better with less central government interference and more devolved to local regions and councils.Quote:
Originally Posted by DryCleaning
Up until now the government has left the free market to decide where it wants to spend its money, and almost always big business chooses London and the South East.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
What would help is taking the kudos out of Oxbridge, or certainly treating other universities in a similar fashion, so the best and brightest are spread around the UK, and not just the south and east midlands. Many hi tech businesses are based around Oxbridge, and its not particularly difficult to understand why.
The government needs to provide at least some direction, and for that we'll need civil servants
Govt can't decide where the market invests, it can only steer it, though I do agree. For too long the UK's cost-benefit analysis favoured investment in London where inevitably one gets more bang for your buck, but it left other areas flagging. That cost-benefit analysis has now been amended I recall.Quote:
Originally Posted by DryCleaning
Totally agree on the universities and the general concentration in the S.E of England, although it is the home to many world leading industries, so we shouldnt neglect it either.
Yes, we will always need civil servants, my point was merely that the big increase in them for Covid and Brexit transitions etc are not necessarily the same skillsets or roles needed for Levelling up, where a lot of the direction and delivery can (and should) be delivered more locally.
You make it sound, remarkably similarly to what Rees-Mogg said that the civil service expanded upon some temporary hump because of Brexit transition.Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesWales
There was a need to manage this period but it is dwarfed by a greater need to establish long term structures as a consequence of Brexit. When we left we also left significant numbers of EU institutions that managed things at a supra-national level. We needed to replicate bodies that we relied upon collectively and set up our pwn at single cost and additional resources.
This spanned things from trade management with all the countries we will have unique deals with new bodies for dispute resolution, educational exchanges to replace Erasmus, Medicine approval to unique satellite technology when we left the Galileo programme.
That's before you factor in the the additional resources needed to manage the settled people, visa and new immigration procedures, border controls and the customs checks required. Things like these are not transient they are structural as a consequence of leaving the single market, customs union and the institutions of the EU.
Absorbing this, giving the resources to whatever levelling up means whilst losing 20% of the existing workforce is another bit of bollocks that will never happen I am afraid.
I don't think it will stop there , there big arguments a abound with civil service unions and staff not returning to the office .
I would not be shocked if the Government takes on the Passport and DVLA as reports still suggest there are huge backlogs and staff still not 100% back in the office .