Impact of Civil Service changes on DfT capabilities

[hwl]

Mod Note: Posts #1 - #11 originally in this thread.

I am starting to hear the phrase 'educated client' used as a new concept. Whilst glad there is the hint of a swing back to this being important, it really should be the norm and not some trendy new thing. I had a call with a private sector sector client involving another infrastructure type today and they sort of summed it up in two sentences... 'We are not expert in this infrastructure type and so need to bolster our client side team. Otherwise how can we properly interrogate scope, costs and delivery.'

I love the benchmarking example above! To be fair that statistic is always going to be highly context specific, to the point that any benchmark is of very limited use. Equally you wouldn't want to be running at say double the European average. I hope interrogation of a bill of quantities could be undertaken in a slightly more instructive manner.

It isn't a new concept but the DfT downsizing in 2011 onwards lead to the loss of a lot of useful people so they are less educated than they used to be. The concept of an educated client isn't a new one, a problem is that is costs more money to be an educated client which doesn't sit with DfT funding levels. Another DfT issue is the continual rotation of many staff at DfT every 2 years so knowledge can be lost very quickly.

 

[edwin_m]

It isn't a new concept but the DfT downsizing in 2011 onwards lead to the loss of a lot of useful people so they are less educated than they used to be. The concept of an educated client isn't a new one, a problem is that is costs more money to be an educated client which doesn't sit with DfT funding levels. Another DfT issue is the continual rotation of many staff at DfT every 2 years so knowledge can be lost very quickly.

Correction: It costs more money in the short term.

 

[hwl]

Correction: It costs more money in the short term.

It costs more money (salary) in the Annually Managed Expenditure budget, the savings are all in capital and multi year spending round related budgets. It always costs more in AME which is where the big post 2011 cuts were focused overall.
Lack of joined up thinking overall.

 

[GRALISTAIR]

Correction: It costs more money in the short term.

Lack of joined up thinking overall.

Short term thinking is a terrible feature of the UK

 

[modernrail]

It isn't a new concept but the DfT downsizing in 2011 onwards lead to the loss of a lot of useful people so they are less educated than they used to be. The concept of an educated client isn't a new one, a problem is that is costs more money to be an educated client which doesn't sit with DfT funding levels. Another DfT issue is the continual rotation of many staff at DfT every 2 years so knowledge can be lost very quickly.

The rotations need to stop. 'I am new and know nothing about this sector' is the usual opener in my recent meetings. The last report I read on civil service performance ranked the UK high in terms of policy making but low in terms of execution capability and capacity. If is a shame as I suspect there are plenty of individuals that would like to sit still, build knowledge and competence and improve the performance of all the relevant infrastructure departments.

Brexit is also having a huge effect. Departments are having people taken off the day job left right and centre. Plenty of civil servants are also leaving because of the poisonous atmosphere and the fact that they have spent the last 2 years working with a Government with no effective focus on UK matters. Let's not forget that civil service salaries are not that good in London compared to the private sector. Take away the public service ethos and many will switch out to the private sector very easily.

 

[hwl]

The rotations need to stop. 'I am new and know nothing about this sector' is the usual opener in my recent meetings. The last report I read on civil service performance ranked the UK high in terms of policy making but low in terms of execution capability and capacity. If is a shame as I suspect there are plenty of individuals that would like to sit still, build knowledge and competence and improve the performance of all the relevant infrastructure departments.

Brexit is also having a huge effect. Departments are having people taken off the day job left right and centre. Plenty of civil servants are also leaving because of the poisonous atmosphere and the fact that they have spent the last 2 years working with a Government with no effective focus on UK matters. Let's not forget that civil service salaries are not that good in London compared to the private sector. Take away the public service ethos and many will switch out to the private sector very easily.

Yep I'd also rate policy making as a bit hit 'n' miss as regards DfT, too many items where the policy people are suddenly realising lots of the difficult items are been victims of pass the parcel for very long time and the final layer of paper is being reached in many cases and they are holding the parcel!

If the rotations stop they might need fewer HR staff to manage thing so that will never happen.
Rotation can have it uses though.

 

[modernrail]

Yep I'd also rate policy making as a bit hit 'n' miss as regards DfT, too many items where the policy people are suddenly realising lots of the difficult items are been victims of pass the parcel for very long time and the final layer of paper is being reached in many cases and they are holding the parcel!

If the rotations stop they might need fewer HR staff to manage thing so that will never happen.
Rotation can have it uses though.

Agreed, there must be a balance that can be achieved between rotations and sitting still.

Ultimately all this would only work if the quality of political leadership also improves. After many years skirting around the decision making bodies around regional infrastructure, I am as annoyed as ever at the approach. As I like to provoke, the rest if the UK - Whitehall's last colony.

 

[edwin_m]

I think it would be instructive to compare the Transport Scotland approach. I don't know it well but I believe they have a small team of rail specialists, who have facilitiated delivery of infrastructure, rolling stock and services which while not perfect seem to be done much better than those further south.

 

[Chester1]

Yep I'd also rate policy making as a bit hit 'n' miss as regards DfT, too many items where the policy people are suddenly realising lots of the difficult items are been victims of pass the parcel for very long time and the final layer of paper is being reached in many cases and they are holding the parcel!

If the rotations stop they might need fewer HR staff to manage thing so that will never happen.
Rotation can have it uses though.

"Rotations" only apply to those on the grad scheme. Career Civil Servants have a tendency to move every couple of years or so because difference experience is advantageous when applying to jobs in the next grade. If the rules were tightened departmental turnover might drop but turnover across the Civil Service would increase. I certainly would not stay in my current department for several years let alone my current job. I would rather leave the Civil Service. Id be bored and become one of those people that constantly moans about their job but never does something different. There have been proposals to setup interdepartmental groups to replace both the internal (department staff only) and Civil Service wide vacancy types. For instance one for the Treasury, Business, HMRC etc, another for security/defence etc. Presumably DfT would be put in the financial group. I can't see it happening though.

 

[hwl]

"Rotations" only apply to those on the grad scheme. Career Civil Servants have a tendency to move every couple of years or so because difference experience is advantageous when applying to jobs in the next grade. If the rules were tightened departmental turnover might drop but turnover across the Civil Service would increase. I certainly would not stay in my current department for several years let alone my current job. I would rather leave the Civil Service. Id be bored and become one of those people that constantly moans about their job but never does something different. There have been proposals to setup interdepartmental groups to replace both the internal (department staff only) and Civil Service wide vacancy types. For instance one for the Treasury, Business, HMRC etc, another for security/defence etc. Presumably DfT would be put in the financial group. I can't see it happening though.

I was was lumping both kind of frequent moves as rotations.

My last sentence "Rotation can have it uses though." was exactly along your line of thinking on staff boredom /disaffection which will be very unevenly spread. Hence the need to make it obvious there is an escape route from the more toxic areas/roles.

 

[hwl]

I think it would be instructive to compare the Transport Scotland approach. I don't know it well but I believe they have a small team of rail specialists, who have facilitiated delivery of infrastructure, rolling stock and services which while not perfect seem to be done much better than those further south.

I think the bumping up the number of specialists compared to generalists in many DfT areas would help overall.