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Non-job of the day (26/06/2007)

Policy Manager (equalities)

Our client is a high profile London Borough and are currently looking for an experienced equalities policy manager. This is a fantastic opportunity to work for a high performing authority on the issue of race equalities.

You will be required to review and ammend existing polices as well as being the departmental lead on race equality. You will work on Level 4 of the Equality Standard for Local Government and be potentially working on projects across all 6 equality strands as and when needed.

19 comments to Non-job of the day (26/06/2007)

  • CFM

    This is typical of an ever-increasing number of Government positions. A job description which, by the contemporary bureaucratic style guide, sounds ever so important. There’s no substance, of course. The lucky automaton who lands the position will spend two or three hours a day, meeting with other self-important bureaucrats, drinking coffee and spewing canned PC buzz-phrases. The rest of the day will be consumed by breaks and long, multi-course lunches.

    That is, on the days he deigns to show up at all. Many of his days will be spent meeting with his Public Service Union colleagues, practicing the fine art of making the brethren sound far more important than they actually are (which is zip). They will polish their oratorical justifications for larger salaries, larger offices, more authority, titles, and the Holy Grail of parasites everywhere, Taxpayer-supplied Benefits. Anyone who dares point this out will, of course, find themselves being accused of racism.

    In a year, this model of gluttonous ineptitude will be pulling down 250k pounds a year, and benefits worth as much again. And he’ll honestly believe he’s performing a Public Service.

    These people are a plague.

  • Nick M

    Time for a bit of blue sky out of the box bleeding edge thinking…

    Considering the fact that most of the UK population aren’t racists and the rest are idiots why don’t we just get on with it. It may amaze the UK Gov but I have managed to have a beer with persons of colour (TM) without the aid outreach co-ordinators. I have had productive relations with co-workers of all ethnicities and sexual orientations and all this without nanny holding my hand.

    Just please don’t extort money from me to tell me what I already believe. Just don’t extort money from me to reduce the assorted Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, Carribeans, East Asians and Africans I have known to tick-boxes on a sodding form.

    Please, please just.

  • Lazarus Long quote on being a priest:
    “It’s lovely work, if you can stomach it.”

    Res ipsa loquitur.

  • So then, what’s the practical difference, between someone holding down – say, this particular job – and a benefits cheat?

    Apart from the fact that a benefits cheat probably has a deeper self understanding, that is…

  • Stephanie

    You will work on Level 4 of the Equality Standard for Local Government and be potentially working on projects across all 6 equality strands as and when needed.

    For me, this was the most jaw dropping part of the job description. Levels? (At least four, no less!) Equality strands? How much more bureaucratic ridiculousness can you pack into a sentence?

    Wait, don’t answer that.

  • guy herbert

    Phil A,

    Relative costs. You’d have to be a very effective benefits fraudster to extract from the public purse as much value as an active equalities bureaucrat destroys, if he, she or it is doing its job properly and interefering with other people’s work as well as eating taxes.

    It were better if CFM’s description were correct, but I fear it is not. Most people in government service aren’t extravagant skivers. It is at their desks we should fear them most.

  • Jonathan Thurgood

    When’s your interview?

  • Mike Davies

    Level 4 of the Equality Standard
    Explanation here:
    http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/index.cfm?request=c1105581(Link)

    I literally have difficulty keeping my eyes focussed.

  • Paul Marks

    A few days ago I was a committee meeting where a report was presented (by the relevant local government officers) on on our multiracial community of Kettering, Northamptonshire.

    “The public” (i.e. members of various groups that wanted taxpayers money) was present and spoke. Normally members of the public do not turn up for local council committee meetings (or speak at them – after all “who elected this guy?”).

    However, one member of the public (who was in favour of the subsidies – he just had a fit of honesty) mentioned that the name of one of their organizations was an error (it was “Race Action”) when they were actually asking for money for various relgious groups.

    This allowed me to denounce the whole report as “racist” for confusing relgion and race, and helped kick the thing into the long grass for awhile.

    Of course it will all come back, there will be subsidies for various groups (and admin costs like the one the post mentions). And a “multiracial” (i.e. non white/pinkish grey) meeting place will be built (as if people with different skin colours should have seperate buildings – for some reason this is not racist).

    This is the nature of politics (and the universe). Bad things happen, but it is our duty to fight against them as long as we can (even though there is no hope of victory). But at least we get to spit in the face of “progress” (the dying of the light) before we die.

    Still one nice thing I have just heard. The scumbag member of Parliament for one of my favourate towns(Stamford in Lincolnshire) has just gone over to the Labour party.

    So all David Cameron’s efforts to be nice to the European Union (oh no we will not demand any power be taken from the E.U. at all – not even over fishing) have left him flat on his face. The “Thatcherite Euro” (whatever that was supposed to be) Mr Quentin Davis (spelling alert) has gone over to Mr Brown (he of the endless tax and regulation increases and the great private pension raid and gold reserve loss) anyway.

    Still at least “bloody minded” Stamford will soon have an M.P. who is at least slightly less of a scumbag.

    Knowing a bit about the locals it is possible that the present M.P. will go before the next election, after all the fens are not far away. Accidents happen in the fens and the bodies are sometimes not found – whole cars have been consumed.

    “But why did the people vote for the scumbag in the first place?”

    Because that is the nature of politics of course.

    The full membership did not get to decide who the Conservative candidate would be (paid up members of the Conservative party would not have got a primary vote – because there is no primary). There would be just some meeting somewhere where a committee would present a few candidates who would be….. (I do not want to remember how things work).

    Then this person would be presented to the voters of the area (in this case that of Stamford and Grantham – yse Mrs T.s home town). Fringe candidates (such as the U.K.I.P. – Independence party candidate) have no chance, and the people would be told that the candidates of the Labour and Liberal Democractic parties were even bigger scumbags than Mr Quentin Davis is. Besides nearly everyone votes for a party not an individual.

    So people troop in to vote for someone they both hate and despise.

  • David A.

    At level 7 you can fire a white person just for the hell of it.

  • Nick M

    guy herbert,

    Bang on. I was wondering how to refute Phil A but you got there first.

    I will just mention something, though. We have seen a subtle shifting of the definition of benefits. Think working family tax credits and all that. Technically that is classed as a benefit as is the 20% reduction in Council tax for people living alone (I live alone with my wife and a cat*). A benefit may be something your’re given but increasingly it’s also something they don’t take from you. How jolly good of them.

    OT but related. The tabloids in ASDA were playing hell over Aricept – the Alzheimer’s drug. The Sun weighed in with a plea “Our lives aren’t even worth GBP2.50 a day!!!!” Aren’t they missing a point here. I’m not Mr Moneybags but I spend at least 2.50 a day on Monster Munch and Coke and generalized crap I don’t really need. If someone I cared about got Alzheimer’s I think I’d be able to stump-up rather less than the price of a Big Mac Meal every day. Admittedly it’s more than the cost of a Happy Meal and I assume Pfizer don’t include a crappy toy in every pack but what the heck. I’ve seen Alzheimer’s up close and if individuals can’t be arsed to stump-up the price of a pint for their loved ones then I can’t be arsed caring about their “plight” either. Have we become so dependant upon nanny that this is really an issue?

    *They haven’t yet managed to find a way to tax cats but they will. They’ll probably use his ID chip to introduce a sodding congestion charge on the catflap. Which I guess reminds me. Much though I love our little jellical creature I am aware that he’s just a cat. He came from a rescue centre and the RSPCA neutered him and chipped him. Is that what HMG has in store for us? But what the heck, we’ll be delivered a coupla pouches of Felix “Yay it’s with Tuna” per day in return.

  • “We am an equal opportunities employer who are committed to ensuring the highest standards amongst all our employee.”
    Grammar is collectivised by applying, inappropriately, collective nouns

  • Married to a Moonbat

    Wonder how many equality managers Sheffield has relative to flood preventation staff…

  • freeman too

    It follows that to even be remotely considered for this fine job you must be able to not only see racism everywhere but be able to show others. The primary requirement then is a complete command of victim language, a clear view of this island’s terrible anti-human history (not only slave-trading but all kinds of wars and suppressions across the globe) and a healthy understanding that only socialism can cure all ills.

    Given that there may be other people applying and you’d rather have your nose in the trough rather than theirs, it would help the candidate to have a thorough grasp of how global warming is damaging the multi-cultural society we are striving to build. I am sure some vague phrase about white trash carbon foorprints treading on the ethnic minorities would go down a bundle.

    Good luck, jobhunters.

  • Freeman: you have no idea, then.

  • If forced between taking this job or say, slamming my penis in a car door, I would at least have to ask- is it an American car? Because you know, USA!!USA!! and all that.

  • Nick M: Just please don’t extort money from me to tell me what I already believe.

    The new regime loves to punish all for the weakness of a few. Alcohol. Smoking. Driving. Marches. Race. Religion. Food. CO2. Education. You name it.

    plus: not taking via tax cuts is seen as ‘bribery’ by the Dave Sparts of this world…oh, so I am being bribed with my own money now, am I?

    Newspeak. Orwell has been right 1,984 times and counting.

  • Re Nick’s ”Bang on. I was wondering how to refute Phil A but you got there first.”

    Huh? Refute? Our Policy Manager (equalities) is draining the public purse, much as a benefits cheat.

    But I do fully concede that if they actually do something in the post, as opposed to sitting around doing nothing, they are almost certainly not as socially ‘useful’ as a benefits cheat, in that could potentially be more actively harmful to society.

  • MarkE

    Nick M

    Have we become so dependant upon nanny that this is really an issue?

    The problem to Joe Punter is not the cost of the drug at £2.50/day – it is trying to get a private presciption because you can’t just walk into Boots and flash your credit card (that would be bad because you might buy some other drugs at the same time, without having sought and gained written permission from your GP). Your government appointed GP is not allowed to see you in a private capacity, so you need to find another. If you are in a group practice they will often obstruct any effort to see a different GP at the same practice (some GPs even refuse to see colleague’s patients), and the consultation will also be private and therefore have to be paid for. The water gets even muddier if the person consulting the GP is not the patient, as may be likely with Alzheimers. I haven’t checked, but I imagine buying online from a less restricive jurisdiction would be easier and cheaper, but those who would benefit may not be comfortable buying online, and the children of Alzhaimer’s sufferers may themselves not be in the first flush (my late technophile father would, rightly, have murdered me if I’d patronised him like that).

    The obstruction is in the rules, not in the cost. Much like any other dealing with government or civil “service” really.