The new ‘Vacancy Filling Scheme’ promises to radically open up the civil service jobs markets within each of the nine English regions. Ben Willis reports on an enlightened scheme launched at an unfortunate time.
At a time of recruitment freezes and job cuts in the civil service, the introduction of a nationwide scheme designed to make it easier for civil servants to apply for jobs could either be regarded as highly opportune or cruelly ill-timed. Either way, just such an initiative is now live, having been signed off earlier this month as official civil service policy by cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell.
The vacancy-filling scheme (VFS), as it is known, is expected to throw wide open a regional market for civil service jobs that until now has operated on a highly restricted basis. Although the appointment of senior officials in recent years has arguably become more transparent, recruitment at lower grades has been far less open: job vacancies have largely been advertised only to staff within the relevant department. Often, they’ve been restricted to applicants of the same grade or the one immediately below that of the vacancy, greatly limiting talented individuals’ ability to move quickly up the ladder.
Marking a decisive shift away from these practices, the VFS means that all civil service jobs within a region will now be open to applicants from any department who live or work within that region. Furthermore, the initiative lifts grade restrictions, enabling staff to apply for any vacancy as long as they have the right experience. Based on a pilot in the West Midlands (see box), the VFS is now live across all England’s regional civil service networks; although with its large civil service workforce, London is initially running the initiative as a trial.
Launching the VFS, O’Donnell said the scheme will enhance civil servants’ career development options at a time of real uncertainty for the profession. “As we all know, we are facing a difficult period for civil service jobs,” he said. “Anything that can help individuals to find wider job opportunities, and managers to choose from a more diverse range of suitable candidates, must be good news.”
While this view is certainly shared by the unions, Charles Cochrane, secretary of the Council of Civil Service Unions (CCSU), cautions that at present the generally poor civil service jobs market limits the VFS’s overall usefulness. “It would be a lot more significant if we weren’t in a financial crisis, because there would be a lot more vacancies,” Cochrane says. “At this time, when who knows where we’re going to be in 12 months or 18 months, anything that increases people’s options must be a good thing. But we have to recognise this isn’t going to be some great panacea.”
What’s more, there are some signs of teething problems for the scheme. CSW has learned that at least one major department – the Foreign Office – has not yet signed up to the initiative. A spokeswoman for the department says its hesitancy is down to the specialist nature of many Foreign Office jobs: “The FCO is still exploring whether our unique security considerations and pattern of home and overseas postings make it practical for us to engage in this interesting initiative.”
CSW has been unable to confirm whether any other departments have yet to sign up to the VFS. But the prospect that the scheme won’t involve all departments is a worry for Cochrane. “It would be grossly unfair if a department was saying: ‘We’re happy for our staff to apply for vacancies elsewhere, but we’re not going to make our vacancies available to people in other departments’,” he says.
One potential downside to the VFS is that a liberated jobs market may make it harder for managers to hold on to good staff – particularly given the varying pay scales operated by departments. “Because of the pay disparities we have across the civil service, there will always be a temptation for people who are in a lower-paying department to apply for suitable vacancies in the better-paying departments,” Cochrane says. “There are some powers that management have to refuse to release people for level transfers [into equivalent jobs], but they can’t refuse to release people for promotions. Good staff will be looking for jobs elsewhere and will leave.”
For Dave Penman, head of operations at the FDA union, this is unlikely to be a major problem, simply because the general squeeze on vacancies at the moment will limit large movements of staff. But what could prove to be a short-term source of resentment in some departments, he says, is the increased competition for jobs resulting from the VFS.
“If you’re in a department where there aren’t many vacancies, you’ll have access to roles in another department, while people in that department won’t have access to jobs in your department because there aren’t any,” he says. “So inevitably at a particular moment in time, someone in one department may feel aggrieved and think: ‘Hold on a second, this job should be ring-fenced for our department’.” The threat that increased competition for scarce jobs within departments will make it harder for internal staff to win promotion may be another factor behind the FCO’s reticence.
Over time, though, Penman believes that the ebb and flow of departmental recruitment drives and freezes should even out any disparities, and that overall the increased freedoms brought by the VFS will prove beneficial. “It will mean civil servants should have job opportunities they wouldn’t have had before,” he says. “And for most people who are trying to manage their career, broadening those career choices is a positive thing.”