Freeze on CPS training scheme continues
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The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) may be forced to keep the door shut on its graduate training programme for the second year running after an organisation-wide recruitment freeze.
The CPS suspended both its trainee solicitor and pupil recruitment programme in October 2009 due to a crackdown on public spending and is expected to make a decision about the 2010 recruitment round within the next few months.
A CPS spokesman said: “We’re committed to recruiting and training talented lawyers, but we must fully consider if the scheme can be run while there is an organisation-wide recruitment freeze at the CPS. A decision will be made before the summer.”
The news comes after it emerged that the CPS’s training principal has taken voluntary redundancy.
Historically, the CPS’s legal trainee scheme has been advertised one year before the start date with the programme attracting around 2,000 applications for between 25 and 50 vacancies.
And up until last year the CPS benefited from the increase in competition for pupillages and training contracts as more candidates started to consider the public sector as an alternative.
Readers' comments (8)
IHateBPP | 14-Apr-2010 11:51 am
What's needed is a complete overhaul of the working culture in the public sector, although it'll never happen.
Public sector lawyers won't work the same hours as their counterparts in the private sector and are often paid better despite this.
It's also likely that the CPS doesn't have the same level of efficiency as the private sector, a further cause of unnecessary waste. I know of numerous government offices where a person is paid solely to write down phone messages, a voicemail system would be considerably cheaper and eliminate that "job". Of course, that wouldn't quite accord with Labour's policy of creating voters through creating pointless jobs.
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Pupil | 14-Apr-2010 3:17 pm
What utter nonsense, IHateBPP.
Firstly, since when have public sector lawyers been better than their private sector counterparts? I must have missed that development.
The appeal of public sector work is:
1. It's normally doing something for the public good;
2. It's a regular 9-5.30 working day.
If anything, the downside is the remuneration.
Secondly, the idea that all waste can be eliminated, in either the public or private sector, is frankly hilarious. Waste of some kind is an innate part of business or administration. It is unavoidable.
All parties are anti-waste. Every rational person, (with the possible exception of a binman) is anti-waste.
I'm sure, however, that you could find £40bn of savings by "cutting red tape and waste".
Populist nonsense.
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Anonymous | 14-Apr-2010 10:39 pm
My boyfriend is a public lawyer and sometimes he works after 7 pm and even during weekends preparing cases. I am sure he does not earn the same as solicitors in the private sector.
That's a really silly comment IhateBPP!
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Anonymous | 15-Apr-2010 3:20 am
I agree completely with Pupil - as someone who has chosen to go into public sector work for the reasons stated above, I turned down a commercial training contract. The difference in salary between the commercial TC and the public sector TC is over 10,000 pounds, with the difference in pay on qualification much higher. Obviously the higher paid one was the commercial training contract.
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Anonymous | 15-Apr-2010 9:48 am
Well said PUPIL
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Trainee | 15-Apr-2010 11:26 pm
I hope you had another training contract lined up when you turned down the commercial one, otherwise that was a really bad move.
iHateBPP you're talking absolute rubbish,
I agree with Pupil.
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Anonymous | 20-Apr-2010 4:09 pm
I almost feel compelled to support iHateBPP for the sake of supporting the underdog! What a stupid post! I really admire lawyers in the public sector, their hours are often just a dreadful and the pay is dire in comparison.
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Anonymous | 14-Aug-2010 3:08 pm
But what of the pension, my father was a local government lawyer and has retired at 64 with a pension of £23K for life and a lump of over £50K
He admits he could never have afforded the contributions to get this in the private sector even if he was on 50% higher pay.
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