“Now that you’re in,” I was told on my first day working in the Department for Education, “there are loads more jobs you can apply for”.
While some civil service roles are advertised externally, far more are open to existing staff.
It facilitates a system where less-effective staff can always be moved around because the bar to bring in outsiders is set high.
It can mean that key posts within the DfE are open to those struggling in other departments such as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or the Department for Transport, while not being open to anyone with relevant, successful experience from a college or school.
It was soon clear that, for a few, applying for jobs was a bigger priority than doing their own job. And it paid off, because civil service recruitment is usually abstractly detached from reference to either your past performance or suitability.
Not doing your job at all and writing 20 applications a day provides better odds of promotion than trying to achieve something.
While FE English and maths was (probably concerningly) my dream government role, I did occasionally indulge in some wistful cross-government job browsing.
From head of nuclear submarine strategy to exotic animal welfare inspector, the posts I clicked into were an exciting list of what I might once have liked to be when I grew up.
What I came to notice though was that those roles, outrageously, required actual experience to be eligible to apply. As I had neither commanded a submarine nor achieved a veterinary degree, those doors were closed.
For education on the other hand, we are so lacking in reverence, so culturally opposed to being exceptional, that non-specialists are actively preferred.
The absence of domain knowledge in the DfE has led us into what I would describe as postmodern policy making; non-teacher lobbyists telling non-truths to non-teacher civil servants. It is a simulation of governance that has no concern for young people.
The rub for FE is that the distance from reality is even more severe, because most in Whitehall can at least imagine some version of a school.
The scale of colleges, the delivery of technical education, and its genuinely diverse student populations are not things that boarding school and a degree in ancient cartography familiarise you with.
The problems this causes are plain to see. Transition of exam access arrangements from schools remains unacceptably burdensome for colleges because civil servants picture a SENDCO having a friendly chat with their opposite number from the local comprehensive about a dozen learners. They cannot conceive of 50 feeder secondaries and half of your students with a specific need.
I’m sure we wouldn’t have been made to wait until just a few weeks ago to learn which level 3 qualifications can run this September if DfE officials had ever tried to predict staffing needs while on shoestring FE funding. It’s not like throwing Mr Chetwyn-Jones some cricket coaching because his A-level geography numbers are down.
Personally, I see it in the department’s credulous parroting of laughable lobbying lines. The recent retreat on condition of funding suggested that English and maths might have an impact on those “at risk of dropping out”. Those who’ve actually worked with students on the edge of NEET-dom will be all-too-aware how trivial lessons are compared to the real-life issues, barriers and anxieties of the vulnerable.
A warm classroom and a warm teacher never made anyone NEET.
The same DfE, in a crude effort to boost apprenticeship numbers, killed a lifeline for those students; traineeships. Again, the idea that those learners didn’t need extra support prior to an apprenticeship could only come from the professionally-clueless.
Imagine being in a meeting weeks after the decision to end traineeships and the senior civil servant responsible remarks that ‘what we really need is a form of pre-apprenticeship’.
If you’re unfamiliar with the jauntily absurd soundtrack to Terry Gilliam’s dystopian film Brazil, just know that I was whistling it in my head non-stop for five years.
We’re currently awaiting confirmation of the appointment of the Skills England CEO, knowing that the ad was seeking ‘senior leaders from government’, and pitched at the level of a DfE director (typically managing around 50 people, so about equivalent to a college middle manager). We can be confident that it won’t be someone with experience in either the classroom or industry.
If we are going to reverse the perverse distaste for education in England, I propose a simple benchmark for those shaping policy: Could they cover a lesson?
Another FE Week column publishing the bitter rants of an ex-civil servant. Scraping the barrel a bit no?
At least this time he has the good grace not to present himself as some kind of cape toting hero rather than a mid ranking official with few notable achievements.
Andrew did you ever consider you didn’t get the many promotions you applied for because you weren’t very good and at least the generalists could be relied on to turn up on a consistent basis rather than going on daytrips?
What a nonsense article from a disgruntled individual. I worked in education and skills training for more than 45 years and the majority of DfE civil servants do the very best they can in an environment of incompetent leadership, poorly thought through policy and no consideration of organisational knowledge- a huge resource of people who ‘wear the t shirt’.
Seems to have hit a raw nerve.
It’s a common theme with policy decided by those who have no real practical experience of FE or students. People move on and leave those subject to implementing policies to deal with the mess. You only need to look at T levels and the obstinacy of civil servants in peddling the lines. Recent face saving reversals and now looking at ways to massage data with smoke and mirrors t level achievement rates. It doesn’t inspire much confidence. Look how FE week has had to fight to get basic information. People never seem to held to account they just move on just look at the former lead for T levels now moved elsewhere. Colleges have to battle on because the civil servants refused to listen in the first place. Original consultation 86 per cent against defending but ignored. Protect student choice have had to fight to get some changes, along with a more listening government
No Ofsted for civil servants they just get moved.
There is some truth in the comments, surely.
My goodness, I actually agree with Andrew for once (although Traineeships were a very poor attempt at a proper pre-apprenticeship prog compared to the ones that came before…), this is very close to my experience of most (not all!) DfE staff…
There is some truth in this article, albeit dialled up to 11 (as per).
The solution cannot be to recruit officials exclusively from the area of the public sector they face, because being a civil servant requires its own domain-specific knowledge and skills. But the balance is out of kilter, and has always been (I joined DfE in 1998 as a qualified teacher with 3 years’ teaching experience and was horrified to discover this narrow base gave me more practical professional insight than almost anyone around me).
There’s another issue which arises, which is that any official who DOES have sector experience gets too much influence, as there is nobody to challenge their opinions and assertions from a similar ‘lived experience’ basis. Unless and until they are eventually undone by their lack of core civil service skills or values, that is…