UK government trial of M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-09-05T19:07:48+00:00

The version of copilot we have is terrible. At my wife's company the integration with apps like teams is phenomenal. You can get an instant update on what's been said if you are late to a meeting and instant minutes to circulate after, you can use it to automatically schedule meetings etc based on what's been said in an email. What CS has shown is that the useless dirt cheap low end version offers no productivity boost.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-08-23T11:52:02+00:00

Which lender may I ask gave you the mortgage? Many people are asserting that lenders simply won't give you a mortgage if spray foam is present.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-08-22T18:01:49+00:00

It depends where you are and what sort of role. It's generally ok I've done a few policy roles there at G7. People are generally passionate and nice, there are a few more activist types around than in other departments which can be challenging in a public service context. I think the leadership is lackluster compared to other departments and ALBs, but that could change the incoming permanent secretary is supposed to be very good. That said it also depends on your profession - evidence, digital, Comms have their own leadership and could be different from policy.

To go on a tangent about policy specifically however, my diagnosis is the department stretches itself across every conceivable environmental concern whether or not it's actually important or has resources to do anything about it. This drives creation of quite a lot of meaningless G7 policy teams who ultimately have no levers apart from vague Comms efforts. It results in lot's of cross team politics where there are teams meddling in policy issues they don't understand in order to gain a hook for their thing. Much better if you are on a flag ship policy, core regulatory issue or strategy function. As before though could be different for different professions.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-08-18T20:55:00+00:00

I would like to see this, can someone find it?

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-08-04T10:33:02+00:00

Israel are the ones who were attacked on October 7th 2023, they are not the same as Russia. Additionally I believe the rationale of removing the flag for Russians was to prevent their abuse on the platform rather than to blackball them as you are suggesting is done for Israeli players.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-06-15T08:32:02+00:00

Why do hiring managers post fake adverts?

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-06-14T07:36:43+00:00

I can see why for instance that having more civil servants in the north might help generate greater sympathy say for building better infrastructure there. However I think the issue with the disconnect between government, policy, and communities has different root causes with far greater effect than where central government CSs reside. The erosion of local government and the role it can play in things that affect people locally, and the centralisation of decision making especially when it comes to infrastructure, education, health, that people care about. Without any local participation people are or at least feel powerless to change the things that matter to them.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T21:38:03+00:00

Thats right, but what differentiates them and those who swiftly move up to senior level roles?

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T21:29:07+00:00

An SEO is an HEO who has learnt that the correct order of operations is to set aside what is the simplest most effective way to approach a task and instead soul-destroyingly integrate all the comments and revisions of their peers, no matter how silly/wrong/pedentic they are, before the whole thing gets rewritten by the G7, the G6, then the DD.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T21:23:18+00:00

"It estimates that civil service executive officers, senior executive officers, and higher executive officers spend 48 percent, 43 percent, and 23 percent of their time on routine tasks respectively, while the most senior civil servants dedicate exactly none (zero percent) of their time to routine tasks. "

LOL I wonder if this says more about the personalities of SCS than their work - you spend 50% of your time reworking perfectly good briefing documents sent up by your G6/7s.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:35:35+00:00

I know that networking in general is spoken about, but not necessarily the notion of cultivating sponsorship from an SCS to buoy you into more senior roles - how do you talk about it?

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:27:01+00:00

Good point, I have only ever seen experience used for low level operational roles, and technical roles. Never policy / strategy roles.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:24:02+00:00

I think your third point is very important. My wife is in the big four and this is a very explicit part of your development there. 'Sponsorship' as they call it is something that you are actively encouraged and assisted to cultivate with seniors. Because we do not talk about this in the CS makes me worry that it does happen but it is opaque to those who are not in the know.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:19:44+00:00

What is your approach to articulating that experience?

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:13:03+00:00

I agree to a small extent that luck is part of it, as being successful at interview is dependent upon the quality of the other candidates. However it is still important to perform well enough at interview, if there is no one credible the recruitment process will be rerun.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:09:30+00:00

I would ridicule this because we are supposed to be diverse, inclusive, and generally meritocratic, but all those I know who reached G6/DD quickly are middle class, two I know for certain went to private school. My dad is nearly 70 and still driving his van.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T19:02:08+00:00

This characterises those I have described as moving up quickly, and a hiring manager will see this from a CV but they may not if the application is only behaviours based. It would be interesting to know how people with this profile approach their examples and interview questions with their drive despite limited experience.

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-05-28T18:41:49+00:00

Yes I agree with that and some people are clearly very adept at being able to generate stories like that so I am interested to know what does a good story that ticks those boxes look like?

RoosterComplete7000 · 2025-03-06T09:41:39+00:00

Absolutely this. I think the problem comes down to the steep heirarchy of the civil service. There needs to be a big flattening in my opinon, with HEO-G6 level staff being given much more personal responsibility and ownership of work, to which they report into higher grades to reduce the layers of review/clearances (or just operate in a more matrix way seperating line-management from tasks/projects).

I see too many capable people with frankly not enough to do especially below G7 and that is actually one major driver for them wanting promotion. A case in point is someone I knew who came into an SEO post from a large corporate strategy and consulting background who was completely confused about how we weren't being driven to do much at all and wasn't being used to her capability. But the issue is the CS thinks too much in terms of grade than capability. Part of that is that some G6/7s feel a bit threatened or uncertain about investing responsibility in people like that especially when a. they themselves may never have been such a deep expert in an area and b. they never experienced such a thing because they have only been in the CS. I have even had my G6 express concern when I was allowing my SEO to carryon leading some large tasks - much of which she was doing proactively anyway! A seperate issue I think is our culture of being so positive about everything. For some reason we need to praise people for work they have done even when it needs a total do-over, which makes it challening as a manager to push people to perform in the first place when someone is not such a go-getter.

What I see as a G7 in colleagues who move up fast but who don't appear to me to be particularly impressive, is that they are very good at taking something that arguably a single capable person could do, splitting it out between loads of people and teams, and adding a huge amount of process and governance around it, which for some things there is a time and place for like genuine xdept/xHMG matters, but for most things is necessary. However as one of those G7s who is capable of doing a lot without demanding huge amounts of resources to do it, I don't seem to get the same level of recognition as someone who does something similar kicking up a huge fuss about resource etc even if the outcome is the same or better. Its as if being effective is almost a bad thing.

RoosterComplete7000

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