Civil Servants bad...

Tories deny 'slash and burn' policy

Apparently, us civil servants are, mostly, pen-pushers and our "backroom" funds need to be pushed to the "front line". Now, I don't want to dispute the need for more money for essential "front line" staff such as teachers, nurses, doctors etc. We get enough work permit applications to know that there's a shortage of them. And I don't deny that there is quite a lot of waste, bureocracy and inefficiency in the civil service. But why, whilst the government and opposition disagree about the figures, do both sides seem to agree that civil servants are a legitimate target and that it's good to slim us down? Letwin, Brown et al ought to come and work at Work Permits (UK), where we're only just keeping our heads above water to churn out cases, and we're getting numerous phone calls nagging us about work permits. Then he'd see how hard we work and how difficult, in certain areas, it's going to be to cut down, whether you do that by recruitment freeze, or whatever.

He might also do well to read Polly Toynbee's article on the matter of civil service "waste" and the good we're doing (not all her points are accurate, but I do have a (rather biased) sympathy with the thrust of the article).