DVLA Adding To HGV Shortages

[JamesWales]

I don't have a firm opinion either way as the evidence is unclear.

One thing I will say, though - at the behest of the Tory government, the work of the entire civil service has become increasingly digitalised in recent years and a far greater percentage of civil servants are now working at home either mostly or entirely. There was a very clear drive towards this situation long before Covid-19 reared its ugly head, and in some respects the pandemic has actually slowed the move towards remote working for various departments, including the one I work for.

I think this is a cracker!

At the end of the day there are only two groups of people who constantly worry about the increasing number of people working from home.

1) Supervisors and Middle Managers whose only purpose in life is to regard themselves as superior to the Hoi polloi. They make limited money out of it but more than the people who accomplish real work. They are the unquestioning slaves of the money men who drive their performance. Their object in life is to accede and command and WFH has seriously eroded their significance. They feel emasculated and have to find other methods to snoop remotely; not easy.

2) Old Fashioned business owners who believe in old fashioned concepts of work effort and time constraints rather than having the nous to evaluate data.

Fortunately both groups are likely to wither in time.

I agree (to a degree), but perhaps you should attempt to express your concerns to the Tory twats you vote for. In my experience, they are extremely keen on digitalization, remote-working, downscaling, cost-cutting, etc. Give it another five years under this shower of shit and I reckon you'll be lucky to speak directly to a civil servant anywhere about anything. Ever.

Yes, I don't agree with 'digital first' strategies in many cases as we are losing a lot of contact and communication, empathy, and the finer grain understanding of issues. It's not helpful for a cohesive society.

I don't see any difference from Labour or other parties however (if I did I would applaud it) and as stated earlier, if anything they seem keener on it all. I would like more organisations to stand up for and recognise the value of human interaction. The loss of it can be devastating.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed your gig.

[The Lone Gunman]

I don't see any difference from Labour or other parties however......

Perhaps if you worked in the public sector, you would.

I've worked in the same department for almost 30 years. The reductions in resources and staff numbers that have occurred within the last four or five years have dwarfed anything that has gone before. Many of our long-standing customers can't understand why our services have deteriorated so rapidly in recent times. Many think we're joking when we tell them about our staffing levels.

Brexit has resulted in an approximate 40% increase in the workload of the team that I'm currently overseeing. Nevertheless, during the pandemic our staffing levels have been slashed by 60%. I work in transport. Like the DVLA, we have large backlogs of work, and that's despite 100% of our staff being onsite for almost all of this year (despite the fact that a large percentage would have been equally productive if they'd been at home). This is life in the civil service under the Tories.

[Eric Cartman]

Perhaps if you worked in the public sector, you would.

I've worked in the same department for almost 30 years. The reductions in resources and staff numbers that have occurred within the last four or five years have dwarfed anything that has gone before. Many of our long-standing customers can't understand why our services have deteriorated so rapidly in recent times. Many think we're joking when we tell them about our staffing levels.

Brexit has resulted in an approximate 40% increase in the workload of the team that I'm currently overseeing. Nevertheless, during the pandemic our staffing levels have been slashed by 60%. I work in transport. Like the DVLA, we have large backlogs of work, and that's despite 100% of our staff being onsite for almost all of this year (despite the fact that a large percentage would have been equally productive if they'd been at home). This is life in the civil service under the Tories.

It's death by a thousand cuts (pun intended), one of the teams where I work has reached the death bit after years of enforced cuts and workload increases, 95% of the team left within 2 months. Anybody they recruit now will leave once they see what is going on.