Happy anniversary

Today is a significant anniversary for me. It’s eight years since I left the civil service, after nearly 40 years service. I’d like to say it was a blast and for the final 21 it was, culminating in the final 15 years as a benefit fraud investigator for the Department for Work and Pensions. All we did, as befits civil servants, was sit around in our suits and bowler hats, drinking tea and counting beans. At least that’s what the public are being led to believe by pound shop politicians like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson. The truth was very different. I was surrounded mainly by highly professional colleagues who worked at full capacity and seemingly beyond for their relatively modest salaries. And on this day in 2014, I walked out of the DWP doors for the final time.

I took great pride in what I did. I certainly had my limitations in terms of preparing paperwork but I’d like to think I made up for it in other ways, by always giving it my best shot. I’d like to think that people saw me for what I wanted to be: an honest foot soldier who always gave what he could to the team effort.

Today my former colleagues in the DWP are under attack from the shady right wing Tax Payers Alliance because of all the sick leave they have been taking. The TPA demands a crackdown on sick leave, as if to say workers take sick leave at the slightest sneeze or ache. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. And anyway the sick leave regulations in the department were already harsh.

This follows attacks on staff for working from home, which they were literally told to do by managers, with people like Johnson suggesting that when civil servants did so they worked incredibly slowly, wandering around the house wondering what they got up for until ending up at the fridge where they would take a small piece of cheese. Utter nonsense. Many staff have been even more productive since hybrid working was introduced, reducing the tiresome and expensive and ultimately unnecessary commute to work. It’s been A Good Thing.

I know parts of the civil service aren’t perfect. In some instances it’s because departments have been underfunded and understaffed. To deal with this, the MP for the 19th century Rees-Mogg wants to further reduce numbers. That should help. Less immigration staff, less tax inspectors, fraud investigators, less prison officers and so on. What could possibly go wrong?

Do I miss my civil service job? No. Do I miss the people? Very much so. I was privileged to work with brilliant colleagues and, yes, brilliant managers. My post civil service careers, mainly in the third sector with the odd bit of private sector thrown in, have reminded me just how professional civil servants and their managers really are. Rarely has the standard of post civil service managers reached mediocre and most were much worse than that. Efficiency was something that other people – like civil servants – believed in and practiced.

The politically motivated denigration of civil servants does our country no favours if people are led to believe, entirely falsely, that they are bone idle shirkers. On the contrary, the ones I worked it believed passionately in public service and value for money. And doing things right. Thanks to my colleagues and managers, I felt I did the same, too.

I doubt that I shall ever again work for an employer. I fear that the things I was taught and believed in – honesty, integrity, hard work – are not as valued as they once were. But where I worked, they meant everything. For me, they always will.