Comment by W3zzy
13 hours ago
I want through the same processen three times already.
I work in civil service but in a very specific job that needs certain degrees by law.
I've heard they were going to outsource my job (because civil servant are expensive) and registered a company that delivers the requested services. I entered a public procurement and upped my price a little because I knew there aren't many people with the right certifications. I won the public procurement and went from a civil servant to a self employed expert with a company car and all the perks.
Near the end of my contract they thought about hiring their own expert again because... money.
I applied for the job and went through an external hiring process and got selected. Because legislation changed my job went from middle management to a senior management position with extra benefits. Had to drop the car though...
A few months ago my colleagues were doing prekilinary budget talks and considered on finding an external company to do my job and getting me another position. I had to point out the cycle they fell into and somehow they forgot about it.
I love this, reminds me of a automation engineer, i got to see on quite a few projects, who always came in wearing the company t-shirt or jacket of the sending company. Its so funny, when its always the same guy coming in for different companies.
That's actual genius. You should write this up in detail!
It's hardly complicated!
OP is simply describing what is common throughout government in the UK. This is known as the Revolving Door.
Private Eye magazine wrote a special report on it some years back as, frankly, it is scandalous https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/revol... [PDF]
The revolving door is a completely different phenomenon, and it is a problem for a completely different reason. It's about politicians in positions of power over an industry later becoming business leaders or highly paid consultants in said industry. This is a huge problem because it works as a long-term bribe: instead of paying for the politician today and inviting inquiries and problems, you make an implicit promise to employ them when they get out of power as a future reward for preferential treatment today. This is an issue of corruption and excessive business influence of public policy.
In contrast, the issue with civil servants being let go and re-hired as contractors is a simple issue of inefficiency. The same person doing the same job has the same incentives, they're not being corrupted. However, our public resources are being spent inefficiently to hire the same person to do the same job for more money, with an added bonus of spending resources on the acquisition process itself.
3 replies →
I didn't say it is complicated. It is unusual for individuals not at the top of the ladder to set up their own companies and get exactly the same job twice. That's not what the "revolving door" is typically talking about.
Prompted and delivered!