Civil servants paid to play violent video game Grand Theft Auto have been branded a 'perfect microcosm of everything broken about the civil service' by critics. The sessions, organized through a scheme called Policy Lab, saw Whitehall staff playing the 18-rated game with members of the public while being paid for their time.
Other Controversial Sessions
In addition to playing GTA, civil servants attended clay modelling sessions, pretended to be earthworms as part of an 'interspecies council', and participated in knot tying workshops. The scheme also hired an artist to draw pictures of benefits claimants to foster 'shared humanity'.
Criticism from Reform Group
Ameer Kotecha, CEO of the Centre for Government Reform, slammed the initiatives. He said: 'While public sector productivity flatlines and Whitehall struggles to deliver basic services, taxpayers are funding a team of officials to play Grand Theft Auto, model clay and tie Peruvian knots, all in the name of experimental policymaking.'
Kotecha added: 'This is the mindset of a bureaucracy that has lost sight of its core mission.' He described Policy Lab as 'a perfect microcosm of everything broken about the civil service: process dressed up as purpose, waffle masquerading as insight, and an institution fundamentally lacking in accountability.'
Details of the Sessions
The sessions were part of a late-2024 plan to help civil servants understand the 'lived experience' of Britons. During the GTA sessions, one member of the public told officials they 'enjoy spending time at their nightclub business or on their yacht'. Others mentioned completing missions, including one where the player tortures a man and another involving racing to deliver prostitutes.
A former diplomat, Kotecha set up the Centre for Government Reform to bring private sector expertise into Whitehall. He argued that such methods are 'precisely why we need to bring people in from the private sector who know what it means to be answerable for concrete results, not just indulgent process and paper-pushing'.
Government Response
A Government source told the Daily Telegraph: 'This is a decades old Tory initiative that we are now looking into.'
