The age and sex statistics for civil service departments as of March 2023 have been released. Guido’ crunched the numbers…
If an aspiring civil servant wanted to work at the youngest department with the most women they should go to DCMS (54.9% female, average age 35). Useful information…
Work-shy civil servants are exploring new avenues of laziness by using insecure AI chatbots to perform analytical tasks. The Department for Education ran an 8-week trial over the summer which used a version of ChatGPT to analyse training plans intended for review by civil servants. The results hailed not only the “useful insights” of the AI but also its potential to “identify future skills needs across the country”. Civil servants are excited to have AI interpret large documents “where previously the only other option for be for individuals to read through all the reports”. Without civil servants at work productivity might spiral…
The government’s guidance on AI chatbots is clear that they should only be used for consultation, and all of their output should be verified as it is often inaccurate. More importantly, no material that is sensitive, classified, or “reveals the intent of government” is to be passed through them as they are insecure. Outsourcing government might prove more difficult than it seems…
The civil service union has paused strikes this month, not that the civil servants themselves will have noticed. They’re still at home…
New civil service occupancy data shows that fewer than half of our tax overlords at HMRC turned up to the office last week, with only 44% daily occupancy despite covid restrictions being lifted two years ago. The famously industrious staff at the FCDO weren’t much better, with only 49% making an appearance at their desks on King Charles Street. Guido is happy that at least the pen pushers will be doing less work at home…
Across all Whitehall departments only 64% of staff were in the office. Hats off to the public servants at the MoD and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy with a whopping 82% and 89% showing up. The private sector has a lot to learn from these high performers…
Over half of the civil servants in the Department for Education (DfE) didn’t bother coming into the office as Britain’s schools crumbled. DfE Office occupancy was at 51% last week – down from 55% at the start of the month. Even a £34 million refurbishment can’t lure work-shy civil servants to get back to the office…
Crumbling concrete and a small boats crisis hasn’t stopped civil servants enjoying the summer sun, as overall office occupancy was at 49.9% last week – down 4% on the start of the month. The agency HQ consistently ranked bottom of the list, with under a third of workers in the office is… HMRC.
Not content with slacking off from the comfort of their remote offices, local government fat cats have taken their remote “working” abroad. The Daily Mail today shared damning evidence, compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, showing that Town Hall chiefs across the country are ‘working from the beach’. The report revealed that 708 pen-pushers have been doing their tasks from abroad in the last year, swapping from sofa to sun in warmer climates as far afield as Brazil, Spain and Croatia. The councils claim this will convince workers to stay. As if the six figure salaries weren’t doing that already…
The number of Civil Servants has risen from 510,080 to 519,780 in the year ending to March, despite government plans to reduce Whitehall headcounts “to secure value and maximise efficiency” earlier this year. The Ministry of Justice is now the largest Department in Whitehall, with an increase of around 5,000 staff since 2022 to a total of 91,875. A reminder that around 40% of Whitehall still works from home…
While Rishi junked Boris’s plan to reduce the size of Whitehall by around 90,000 staff – equivalent to a whole Department – the Cabinet Office did at least vow in January to make “considerable efficiency savings” across the Civil Service. Oliver Dowden, now Deputy Prime Minister, said:
“If you look at the spending review settlements over the coming years, those are tight spending review settlements, which for most departments outside a small number of protected departments will see quite substantial reductions in their budgets […] That will necessarily drive considerable efficiency savings, and I would expect to drive headcount savings as well.”
The Civil Servant headcount has gone up since then, not down. They have also had a 5.5% pay rise after striking-from-home this summer. How are those efficiency savings working out?
