It doesn’t look like Labour’s high-minded attitude to cronyism and chumocracy will stop blowing up in its face anytime soon. Despite Starmer launching a leak inquiry into the briefings against Sue Gray…
Guido can now reveal that the government is pushing through dozens of ‘exceptions,’ which allow it to circumvent usual impartiality rules in making civil service appointments. From 5th July 2024 to 19th August 2024, the Civil Service Commission approved a total of 70 exceptional appointments. That includes 16 senior-level positions for directors…
37 ‘temporary appointments’ were pushed through in Labour’s short initial period, alongside 20 secondments from outside the civil service. DSIT leads the pack with a whopping 12 exceptions alone, including an appointment to the highest pay band from £127,000 to £208,100. This is the system that allowed Labour Together Starmtrooper Jess Sargeant to be appointed as a Deputy Director in the all-knowing Propriety and Constitution Group…
The Commission says it is “keen to reduce” the number of civil service exceptions it makes while it launches a “rapid review” into Labour’s crony appointments. Government of Self-Service latest…
Last month the government fired off thirteen job adverts for positions that will form the foundation of its flagship state energy investment vehicle GB Energy through DESNZ. £688,805 in taxpayer-funded salaries were up for grabs, including generous work from home provisions and a defined benefit civil service pension. Despite all those goodies it looks like there isn’t much enthusiasm for Miliband’s pet project…
The applications have now closed and the numbers are far from encouraging. The “Development Lead” position in London was the only one to receive more than a hundred applications. The average number of applications for the other six locations is a pitiful 50. In Aberdeen, the HQ of GB Energy, only 44 people bothered to apply for the job…
The situation is even worse for GB Energy’s “Engagement Lead”, which has averaged a measly 38 applications across the UK. Applicants should be in the high hundreds for positions like this. The energy’s not there…
According to Whitehall sources, ministers are quietly ditching the three-day office rule for civil servants, with no appetite to crack down on the work-from-home brigade. As Labour schemes to hand out even more flexible working rights, ministers are taking a “less dogmatic” line on dragging the pen pushers back to their desks…
Meanwhile, Labour is still keeping shtum on just how many civil servants are actually bothering to turn up, refusing to publish the numbers, as Guido first revealed. This is despite one study showing home workers are about 10% less productive. Last year, a whopping 40% of Whitehall’s public sector staff were still shirking from home. With Labour refusing to publish the stats, expect that number to be even worse…
HMRC have hit a record-breaking low, with sackings for gross misconduct now at a five-year high, as 179 tax office drones have been booted so far this year alone. A whopping 43% surge since 2020…
Gross misconduct includes bullying, intoxication, theft and gross negligence. One such model employee ended up behind bars earlier this year after abusing her position to scam £300,000 in child benefit. HMRC staff haven’t had the best track record, with 840,000 callers to the bureaucratic overlords ignored in January. Meanwhile the new-age “flexible working” has seen the pen-pushers concentrating on gaming on their PlayStations and “gardening” rather than deal with the taxpayers who keep them employed. Now it seems even the ones who make it into the office can’t seem to get the job done…
Taxpayers spent an eye-watering £3.4 billion on private consultants last year, marking a staggering 57% increase over the past five years as the public sector opted to outsource staff for various projects. According to data company Tussell, civil service departments spent the most, accounting for 58% of the total, with the Energy Department spending the most at £339 million. That’s a lot of cash forked out in a single year…
It’s odd the blob feel the need to spend so much on outsourcing workers, considering the number of civil servants has increased to 503,000, with the salary bill rising by 60% – or £5.8 billion – over the seven years up to 2023 Meanwhile, Labour have committed to a 5% pay rise for all civil servants, despite wails of a fiscal “black hole”. Perhaps the never-ending public sector strikes may be driving the government to splash the cash on consultants…
It’s no wonder that the Cabinet Office was as keen as possible to avoid confirming Jess Sargeant’s appointment to Guido. Labour is scrambling to spin the appointment of a party-aligned staffer to a senior position in the Propriety and Constitution Unit as fine.
When Sue Gray led the same unit she used it to become “one of the most powerful civil servants in the UK” overseeing the probe into and removal of Cabinet Office Minister Damian Green. Guido hears Sargeant “just turned up one morning” around two weeks ago having been given the job without external advertisement. One Cabinet Office source tells Guido she is not even on the internal department database – a hurried insertion into the role from the very top. Hardly suggests the government has an established system of “firewalls” and protections in place to limit Sargeant’s access…
Labour last night hastily cobbled together a line claiming that Sargeant will be “confined to constitutional matters” using “firewalls” to ensure she is “not involved in any propriety casework, inquiries or investigations.” As Deputy Director in the small Propriety and Constitution Unit, Sargeant will work in an office with some of the broadest access in the Civil Service:
Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds had staff secondments worth £35,522 from Sargeant’s Labour Together campaign in the last year – effectively laundering money from Lord Sainsbury who gave £300,000 to the campaign. Sainsbury also funds the Institute for (Big) Government where Sargeant worked before Labour Together. Arguably her new boss was beholden financially to the Labour Party donor who financed her last two jobs. You might perceive this financial link as a manifest conflict of interest…
Guido’s attention has been directed by Civil Service experts to paragraph 7.1 of the Ministerial Code which makes it clear that “Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise.” When will the investigation into itself by the Propriety and Constitution unit begin?
UPDATE: Cabinet Office source says Jessica Sargeant will not be “Deputy Director of the Propriety and Constitution Unit”. Job title now unclear.
