The Civil Service is horrified that the government has scrapped funding for higher level apprenticeships and for older apprentices.
A spokesman said, ‘The Civil Service has an excellent record of delivering apprenticeship places. Everyone in HR is doing an apprenticeship. The government is funding their MA courses and their PhD’s that are essential in getting them well paid jobs in the private sector.  Without the apprenticeship scheme, all these stupid old duffers won’t get any qualifications, and they will just hang around and block promotion for younger staff.
‘All professional functions will be affected – procurement, facilities management, organisational development, finance, talent management, equality and disability officers, LGBTQ+ champions, records management, and communications experts – all the critical back office functions that keep the Civil Service show on the road. This is a tremendous blow. Without the apprenticeships to keep them busy, these people will be back in the office thinking up new and stupider ways to bugger up the Civil Service.
‘Thankfully, policy work is not affected. All our policy staff are essentially untrained, including those with degrees in PPE from Oxford University.  They have always argued that their lived experience from the University of Hardly Any Knocks is the best training for thinking up dim-witted policies for their ministers.Â
'So, going forward in the new world without funding for apprentices, policymaking will continue to be done by shadowy think tanks, and the civil servants will continue to present this work as their own.’
Picture credit: Wix AI
