Britain Is Firing Every Lazy Government Worker

[FarCenter]

Under-performing civil servants will be identified and fired under plans to rank all government officials by ability.

David Cameron is growing increasingly impatient with institutional failures and his ministers have complained privately about regularly receiving "useless" advice from below-par officials.

Ministers are determined to change the culture of the Civil Service, in which, they say, "lazy" staff get away with poor performance because managers are unwilling to have "difficult conversations". Sweeping plans to overhaul the service are expected to be published within a month. They are bound to infuriate the public-sector unions, who staged another day of industrial action last Thursday.

http://www.businessinsider.com/britains-firing-every-lazy-government-worker-2012-5

[hughee99]

1. I suspect the biggest culprits have to be voted out rather than fired. n/t

[Brickbat]

2. Are the managers going to get an overhaul, too?

If they're unwilling to have "difficult conversations" -- and believe me, I've seen lots of managers like that -- then it sounds like they're in the wrong profession.

[Starry Messenger]

3. Hope they are starting way at the top.

edit: oh this article is a reprint from the Torygraph. Talk about useless eaters. It's a right-wing paper, fyi.

[smirkymonkey]

7. So does this mean they are getting rid of the House of Lords?

[Starry Messenger]

8. Perhaps the entire aristocracy.

There's a few I like, but the rest are probably quite a drain on the taxpayer.

[Enrique]

4. what do you think of the Telegraph's headline?

are you posting this RW rag article to affirm it or to mock it?

[FarCenter]

6. I particularly liked the part about bureaucracy at the Cabinet level

Another Downing Street source said: “We need to think laterally about what the Civil Service is actually for. At the moment, only about a third of a minister’s box is actually concerned with Coalition policy, the majority is unnecessary paperwork from civil servants and European matters.”

[cynatnite]

5. I hope managers don't use this as a way of getting rid of who they don't like...

I've seen managers target people they don't like and work to get rid of them no matter how hard the work.

[JDPriestly]

9. That is precisely what they will do.

And you'd think that David Cameron would be more concerned about his problems with the Rupert Murdoch connection than with taking out his frustrations on loyal public servants.

[nxylas]

10. The "lazy civil servant" is just a RW boogeyman

I worked in the civil service and I know how hard everyone has to work there due to years of downsizing while the amount of work to be done remains the same. This is just a pretext for more downsizing in order to pay for fatcat bonuses for the 1%.