39 Comments

1. Sarah on March 28, 2012 at 1:19 pm

   “Whilst we are seeking graduates with office experience for the HR Intern opportunity…”

   Eh?? So it’s lower than their so-called entry level position and you STILL need experience in order to apply? To work full time on less than a liveable wage for six months? Unbelievable.

2. Laura on March 28, 2012 at 1:30 pm

   Maybe I’ve been brainwashed; but I’d kill to earn that much, and when you take into account the prestige, training and lunches, I don’t think it’s that bad a salary.
   Plus, I think it’s a bit unfair to blame the Queen personally, it’s not like she made the decision to pay that salary!

3. Kayla on March 28, 2012 at 2:20 pm

   I agree with Laura, it’s not a bad salary seeing as they also apparently provide lunches (so the otherwise quite large expense of buying lunch in central London is taken care of). As for the experience requirement, I think that’s not totally unreasonable either. I understood it as some basic admin skills, so they don’t have to teach people how to use a spreadsheet or type a letter. It sounds like they actually provide quite a lot of support and training, if what the email says is true.

   I’ve definitely seen internships (for grads as well as second-years) that have more demanding and specific requirements in terms of the length and type of experience, essentially expecting the intern to need absolutely no training or support. Quite a few of those were unpaid too, so in that light, I think the Buckingham Palace (as I doubt the Queen personally has anything to do with this) isn’t doing anything wrong. They are well within the legal obligation of paying the NMW and while they perhaps could afford to pay people more, the same could be said for many London employers, but there is no legal obligation to pay the London living wage as of yet.

4. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 2:22 pm

   @Laura, you are being brainwashed. I could just about survive in Sheffield on a wage of £13,500pa. They’re probably going to hire someone who can have their wages topped up by the bank of Mum and Dad and be living at home thus excluding anyone outside of London, etc. Same old cycle these internships… Also, employers are using the minimum wage as the basic pay of a lot of jobs now, it’s pretty alarming and shouldn’t be acceptable. Those at the top become even richer by squeezing those at the bottom… bleurgh.

5. Craig on March 28, 2012 at 3:20 pm

   Oh come on Tanya… I’ve been agreeing with you so much lately, and you come out with this?

   This is a success! We should be celebrating! I don’t see the incongruence between the two roles. This is how I interpret it…

   £12,500 pa = Internship
   £18,000 pa = Permanent HR Job (Entry level)

   Internships are not entry level jobs – they are below entry level jobs. What he has described, with PDP and other development, is an archetypal internship. I imagine the job description for the entry level HR assistant would require more of candidates by way of already having specific knowledge and training.

   I really do think this is making something out of nothing. Internships are always going to be paid less – but at least it’s paid above (even slightly) what the law demands.

   The title of this article should be “Queen Values Interns by Paying Them Above the National Minimum Wage AND Providing Lunch to Boot!”

   Good work, Royal Household… I’m very impressed!

6. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 3:35 pm

   This is like those moments when a tax might not be directly called a tax but still looks, smells and acts like a tax. Call it an internship and companies are seen as god like if they even bother giving something towards the intern.

   And lunch expenses? 20/25 quid a week?

   How about travel in London? Accommodation?

7. Craig on March 28, 2012 at 3:45 pm

   Employer doesn’t pay – You’re not happy.
   Employer offers travel and lunch – You’re not happy.
   Employer offers NMW and lunch – You’re not happy.
   Employer offers NMW+a little bit and lunch – You’re not happy!

   WHEN WILL YOU BE HAPPY?

   This is meant to be a campaign for payment of interns. They’re being paid in this internship, stop moving the goal posts and pointing out that they’re not paying enough!

   How many employers do you know that cares how you get to work or where you live? I can tell you now, not many. Prospective employees deal with that

   If a prospective employee can’t get to work and home and live close enough to make the reimbursement worth-while, then they’re probably not suitable for the job. Interns and young people are no different.

   Why can we not just accept that this job is being paid and that is a GOOD THING.

8. redheadfashionista on March 28, 2012 at 3:57 pm

   Agree with Laura – I can’t imagine Her Maj has any clue.

9. Tanya de Grunwald on March 28, 2012 at 4:12 pm

   @all

   I agree that it’s good that Buckingham Palace are paying their interns, rather than not paying them – and that was my initial reaction, like Zoe Williams (and a few GF readers, I see).

   But then I thought… really? Have we really got to the point where we’re actually impressed that Buckingham Palace isn’t breaking the law in its treatment of its youngest staff? Wow. Things must be bad.

   Lisa is right – £12,500 is a VERY low salary. Especially in London. That anybody considers it to be a decent wage (whether for a graduate or a non-graduate) is pretty shocking, to my mind. Frankly, £18k (the salary for the entry level role) isn’t that fantastic either. My first job after uni (as an office manager for a recruitment firm) paid £20k, and that was in 2000. Something really serious has happened when, 10 years on (when the cost of a degree AND the cost of living have both rocketed), we’re saying £18k is a brilliant graduate wage. In my opinion, that only goes to show how the unpaid internships scandal has chipped away at what graduates feel their labour is worth. What I was saying in this post is that you are worth a LOT more than a few pence above the minimum wage. TBH I’m slightly struggling with the fact that some of you seem to disagree so strongly, trying to convince me that you are worth so little! But I will try and wrap my brain around that one later.

   Also, please remember that this is my personal opinion – and I’m entitled to that, like any other GF user. The reason I wrote this post is because I was interested to hear what everyone else thinks… And it seems there is quite a range of opinion, which is good! At least we’re discussing this, right? Feel free to continue to disagree with me, as I’m sure you will… ; )

   Tanya

10. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 4:14 pm

    I just think it’s more hypocritical for the royal family who parade about supposedly caring about world issues etc. and have a ton of money, that they could set a better example when they clearly are in a better position to do this and have more reason to.

    I do think there is the issue however of, is this an internship disguised as a real job? The line seems a bit blurry of how qualified you need to be to do the internship and the entry level role as I presume entry level roles have the training structure involved etc. too.

11. Craig on March 28, 2012 at 4:20 pm

    Tanya, have you ever considered what’s actually important to generation y?

    Not everyone’s primary motivation is money.. I am just enjoying finding what I want to do. If I’m being paid NMW or more, then I’m happy. I’m learning skills, I’m earning money, and I’m diversifying my CV.

    Honestly, if I wasn’t engaged in a job, I’d apply for that HR vacancy. I’d accept those terms and I’d make it work without external financial aid. The reason? It sounds incredible.

    I think if we see this internship and its pay as a negative, then we’re looking for problems in solutions, rather than finding solutions for the problems these opportunities (or any opportunity) inevitably pose.

12. Craig on March 28, 2012 at 4:23 pm

    @Lisa
    There are fashion houses, newspapers, law firms, etc, who are worth far more than the queen’s estate who are paying nothing.

    There are charities all over the world that “care” about the welfare of the disadvantaged, and pay nothing (Charities are the worst).

    On the scale of exploitation, the queen’s internship wouldn’t even register.

13. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    @Tanya – 18g for an entry level role is disgraceful especially when I’ve read this today:

    ‘Rents are now so out of touch with wages that some families are spending over half of their income just to keep a roof over their head.’ Our Rent Watch report reveals renting a two-bedroom home in London is now unaffordable for families earning less than £52,000′.

    It’s quite saddening we’re just expected to be happy to receive anything. I felt like that being paid my measly 13,500pa out of graduation back in 2010 (later finding out my colleagues in the same role were being paid 15g and more), two years on and still struggling to find permanent employment, that attitude doesn’t work, we should be more demanding! Otherwise, as graduates and young people we will be taken for a ride. Either way, bigger companies like this should be paying more!

    And seriously, what difference would a few more grand make to the royal family, I doubt it would damage the amount of hats she buys every year(!) Bit of Royalism blinding the fact that as Queen and representative of this country, they still can’t be bothered, not even paying the London living wage! Bit out of touch…

14. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 4:28 pm

    @Craig I’m well aware of the hypocrisies engaged by other companies, charities etc.

    Money isn’t everything, you’re right.

    But let’s break it down, 12,500 is about 200 per week.

    London Rent: 100/120
    Travel: 30/40

    You still need money to survive, pay off your debts. Just because you demand a wage to be fair does not mean you are money hungry or greedy. This sort of thing will have a knock on effect, albeit indirect: parents have to keep paying to support their kids and as Tanya keeps making you aware, lowering the worth of your labour.

    How do you think the rich get rich?

15. Craig on March 28, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    Surely there must be more low-cost solutions for living? I’d live in a hostel as long as I have access to clean water and a bed. And travel? I’d have to consider more cretive solutions – Walk, bike, etc.

    What debts do you refer to? I won’t be paying back my student/maintenance loan until I earn over 15k and I worked all the way through university (and I’m self funding post-graduate study through working) so I don’t have any commercial loans…

    I don’t think fairness is something we can agree on, it’s subjective. I think this internship is fair. It could me more fair, but as it stands it’s fair. I understand that the value of labour is decreasing, but I think that unpaid internship culture has more of an effect on this that paid internship culture. In addition, with the workforce being more highly educated than ever, of course the power has shifted to employers to choose what terms they contract on.

    I don’t like inequalities of bargaining power, but I’m happy for employers to pay NMW. That to me is fair.

    I think the rich get rich by either tremendous luck or skill. I’m not holding out for luck, so I’d best become really really good at what I do by being a diverse, savvy survivor.

16. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 5:07 pm

    @Craig. Seriously, you’d live in a hostel for some sort of opportunity, working for a family of multimillionaires? They should pay a wage where you wouldn’t have to worry, stress, etc. We shouldn’t just give up and just put up with whatever the situation is.

    And most debts I’m talking about is overdrafts not to mention having a decent quality of life. I don’t think that is too much to ask.

    And you only have to look at the Budget to see how the rich are getting richer… Pay your staff peanuts and keep the rest for yourself.

17. Derrick on March 28, 2012 at 5:59 pm

    As far as I’m aware the Queen is partly paid for by the public purse, therefore she has a duty to keep costs down.

    You can’t have it both ways, either you want high salaries – and the public rightly complain about overspending. Or low ones and GF complains about underpayment.

    Whichever way you look at it a paid 6m internship for the Queen is one hell of a credit on the CV.

    I say go searching for other fish to fry, this one is doing the right thing and protecting the public purse (for all the Republicans out there).

18. Derrick on March 28, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    I think with all these types of campaigns its easy to decide what you are against, its less easy to know what you are for. I’m not so convinced that this campaign will ever find a happy medium.

19. David Niccol on March 28, 2012 at 7:57 pm

    Ahem…. given that the Queen, a well known and respected member of the German House of Coburg Saxe Gotha (this was changed to the House of Windsor in 1917), has never worked a day in her life, perhaps We should focus on people who have actually worked in their lives. On this subject, perhaps the Queen and her brood should be coerced by Job Centre Plus into some Mandatory Work Activity, say as a soux chef within a fast food restaurant, or even cleaning lavatories within Kings Cross Station.

20. Lisa on March 28, 2012 at 8:11 pm

    Exactly, I’d like to see her lot work internships for free or just above minimum wage. More like 12,500g is a little spending spree for them in Harrods.

    I would also say it’s difficult to account what is paid from the ‘public purse’ or if it’s from her many other incomes…

21. Derrick on March 28, 2012 at 10:02 pm

    Not really a Freedom of Information Request is all that’s required, or else have a look through here. http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/AnnualFinancialReports/Annualfinancialreports.aspx

22. The Placement Officer on March 29, 2012 at 1:45 pm

    I’m not sure my students would consider £12k for doing a placement year in Central London, let alone for a graduate role.

    That said, I’d have thought tackling wealthy employers who expect students to work for expenses only or for nothing at all would be a higher priority than taking on the Queen. Yes the money is pretty mean, but it is paid and not contravening NMW.

    Keep up the good working in highlighting the exploiters though.

23. Craig on March 29, 2012 at 1:54 pm

    @The Placement Officer
    “That said, I’d have thought tackling wealthy employers who expect students to work for expenses only or for nothing at all would be a higher priority than taking on the Queen. Yes the money is pretty mean, but it is paid and not contravening NMW.”

    Well said. Especially seeing as, from what I’ve observed, the markets ARE responding to all the press coverage about exploitation and NMW exploitation. The message is sinking in.

24. Sarah on March 30, 2012 at 9:33 am

    “As for the experience requirement, I think that’s not totally unreasonable either. I understood it as some basic admin skills, so they don’t have to teach people how to use a spreadsheet or type a letter”

    But what it says is “office experience” – How can that mean anything except “You will need to have worked in an office previously in order to apply for this role”? For an internship (which is supposedly below even the entry-level position), it is reasonable to expect someone to know how to use a spreadsheet or type a letter, yes, but they’re demanding someone who has ALREADY worked in an administrative position.

    This is ridiculous. It may not be contravening NMW, but no one without a huge bank of savings or support from Mum and Dad will be able to actually do this. How is that helping anything?

25. Kayla on March 30, 2012 at 11:50 am

    @Sarah, for one thing, a lot of people who already live in London might be able to do that internship, as that would create no extra living and travel costs (presumably, most people in London have a zone 1 travelcard). So it might help one of them. Legally, employers have an obligation to pay the NMW or higher, but whether or not they go higher and by how much is for them to decide. No one is legally obliged to offer wages that cover unlimited board and travel expenses within the country – every job is based somewhere, and if you want to do that job, you might have to commute or relocate. It certainly is nice when an employer offers to help out with those costs, but it is the employer’s decision and not a legal obligation. I don’t think we should be conflating the clearly legal issue of employers disregarding the NMW altogether and the purely speculative issue of how high a salary particular employers could still afford to pay. Surely JP Morgan or the Penguin Group could afford to pay each of their employees more than they do, but is it their prerogative to set wage levels as they see fit within the limits of the law.

    As for the experience requirement, since it doesn’t give any specific details, I assume it covers formal experience like a previous placement as well as informal experience like volunteering, being the secretary of a society etc. Which I don’t think is terribly unreasonable, but we’ll probably have to agree to disagree on that.

26. Lisa on March 30, 2012 at 11:59 am

    (presumably, most people in London have a zone 1 travelcard)

    Nope, people on a low amount of money usually top up their oyster and limit their travel use.

    Not just looking at this example, it is sad that a lot of good internships are in London and the wages do not allow others to come here. If you have a normal, well paid job then you can move. It just means a lot of my friends, who don’t live in London are stuck in their home towns doing dead end jobs not being able to pursue their career path. It’s very frustrating. This is not just an attack on internships but the fact there is so much job concentration in London and the South East. However, as Sarah has put, you would still have to rely on Mum and Dad or savings probably, to get by. 12,500 is such a low wage in London.

    Also, I do think people are missing the point here about why it’s the Queen being singled out compared to other companies. It’s the same reason it’s more frustrating when you see politicians flouting these same rules, etc. They are representatives of the public and they just couldn’t really care less about what their actions would mean.

27. Sarah on March 30, 2012 at 1:05 pm

    “for one thing, a lot of people who already live in London might be able to do that internship, as that would create no extra living and travel costs (presumably, most people in London have a zone 1 travelcard)”

    I never said it would present any extra living costs. The cost of living in London is much higher than what this internship would allow you to do. Also, as Lisa says, I’m not sure why you’d assume everyone living in London have travelcards, they’re very expensive, particularly for young people who are more likely to apply for this internship.

    “Legally, employers have an obligation to pay the NMW or higher, but whether or not they go higher and by how much is for them to decide.”

    Again, I didn’t dispute this. My objection is that, for some reason, the Royal family aren’t offering their employees (and I believe interns do apply here) a liveable wage.

    “No one is legally obliged to offer wages that cover unlimited board and travel expenses within the country”

    Where did I say that they should? A liveable wage does not cover unlimited board and travel expenses, however, it does ensure that people can afford to keep their homes, eat, and travel to and from work. The wage offered by this internship does not ensure this.

    “I don’t think we should be conflating the clearly legal issue of employers disregarding the NMW altogether and the purely speculative issue of how high a salary particular employers could still afford to pay.”

    Fine, but again, nowhere did I actually do that.

    “As for the experience requirement, since it doesn’t give any specific details, I assume it covers formal experience like a previous placement as well as informal experience like volunteering, being the secretary of a society etc. Which I don’t think is terribly unreasonable, but we’ll probably have to agree to disagree on that.”

    I think we will, given that, as it’s advertised as an internship and one which is specifically below an entry-level position, I don’t see what merit there is to requiring experience to do it. As far as I’m concerned, having experience should be enough to get you a job, not an internship at below a liveable wage. It’s a real shame that the goalposts have been moved so far that people are happy to accept that you need to (most likely) work for free even to gain access to an internship which you won’t be able to support yourself on.

28. Lisa on March 30, 2012 at 1:45 pm

    Agreed @Sarah! I think people are starting to think it’s OK for young people to put their life on hold, take big risks taking time and their own money to get ‘great work experience’ before finally (hopefully) finding a job. I can tell you, nearly 2 years on from graduating, this ‘be grateful for whatever you get’ attitude, doesn’t work and has just led to this ridiculous culture of unpaid internships and low paid jobs for young people. This is not about just ‘complaining’ or nothing ever being ‘good enough’, it’s about reaching an acceptable level. What about the young people after us who are going to come out with even greater debt? This just isn’t a small problem when you have 1 million young people out of work.

29. Sam on April 4, 2012 at 12:35 pm

    The government pays the Queen’s staff, so I think tax payers would feel aggrieved if they were paying interns £30k a year.

30. Tanya de Grunwald on April 4, 2012 at 1:46 pm

    @Sam

    I agree £30k would be too much… But 18k would be fair, don’t you think? It depends on what’s involved, but personally I think that’s the very least employers should be paying for jobs / internships that are advertised as being ‘graduate’ roles.

31. Sam on April 4, 2012 at 2:15 pm

    @ Tanya

    I see what you’re saying, but being paid anything to work at Buckingham Palace is a world away from what many graduates have got. I knew a few people who did unpaid internships for MPs at Westminster, and these were full time positions, one of which lasted for six months! A small allowance was given for lunch and travel within certain zones but the intern was expected to pay the rest, which meant working over forty hours a week and then doing bar work in the evening to fund it.

    However the majority of these interns did manage to secure paid jobs at the end of it, or within months of completion. It’s not an ideal situation by any means, but if they help you to find a half decent position then surely they’re commendable?

32. Tanya de Grunwald on April 4, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    @Sam

    I hear what you’re saying – but unfortunately it’s turned out to be not quite that simple. What we’re seeing is that as internships become more widespread – used by employers to gain cheap / free labour – graduates are finding they have to do them for longer and longer in order to have a hope of landing paid work at the end of them. In other words, the goal posts just move further away…

    And it’s really not fair that those who can’t afford to work for free are effectively blocked from even having a shot at their chosen career. I know interns feel stuck between a rock and a hard place – you’re right. But that’s why we’re encouraging you to do something about it – and that starts with understanding that your labour is worth a LOT more than zero, whether you have ‘experience’ or not!

33. Sarah on April 4, 2012 at 4:59 pm

    “…which meant working over forty hours a week and then doing bar work in the evening to fund it.”

    Unless they were working another 40 or so hours a week at their bar jobs, how on earth would they have been able to support themselves in London? Unless they had contributions from family/partners, which (as Tanya says) locks many people out of the opportunity of these internships anyway. So were these people eating, travelling and socialising in a couple of hours and getting by on four hours sleep a night??

34. Sam on April 4, 2012 at 6:27 pm

    @ Sarah

    I know one of them rented a room from a friend, and the other stayed in shared accomodation with several other Parliamentary interns, so I think they were spending between £60 and £70 a week. You could manage it if you worked 25 hours.

35. Sarah on April 5, 2012 at 6:53 pm

    “I know one of them rented a room from a friend, and the other stayed in shared accomodation with several other Parliamentary interns, so I think they were spending between £60 and £70 a week. You could manage it if you worked 25 hours.”

    Leaving aside the fact that not everybody is able to rent a room at what I would assume is a very VERY reduced price in order to do an unpaid internship… the person who was sharing a house spent £70 a week? That’s on rent/food/bills/etc? Even if it was only rent, that’d work out at around £300 a month. For a room in London. I pay that in Bristol and I share with three other people. Even in a shared house, you’re not likely to find a room that cheap, unless you share a room the size of a shoebox and live with 10 other people, and even then you’re likely to be miles out of the centre of town and you’d have to spend a fortune on transport.

    25 hours a week on top of a full-time job is still insane, even if this scenario is factual. Say you get out of work at six, you’d then need to be working from say seven til midnight 5 nights a week, or you could spread it over seven and never get a full day off. Even if this is true, it’s still completely ridiculous and no one should be expected to do it to get a job.

36. Tanya de Grunwald on April 6, 2012 at 10:20 am

    I agree that it’s extremely difficult to live on a very low salary in London. Don’t forget, this is one of the most expensive cities in the world.

    Unaffordable accommodation is a big part of this. Unless you’re sleeping on someone’s floor, renting a room is going to cost £450 a month minimum, within zone 2. A tube travelcard for zones 1-2 will then cost you £106 a month (so that’s £26 a week from your living allowance gone, just to get to work). On top of that, there’s your food, council tax, TV license, gas bill, water bill… The list goes on.

    If you live further out, your rent may be a tiny bit cheaper, but your travel costs will be higher. Either way, I just don’t see how it’s reasonable to expect interns to work for nothing in such an expensive city. It’s not possible to live for free, so why is it fair to ask people to work for free?

    As I’ve said, I know the wage for this internship is within the law. However, the fact remains that someone doing this internship would need financial support from somewhere – whether that’s from their parents, or from the state (in the form of benefits) in order to survive. Either way, I think that’s pretty shocking. When you’re working full-time for the Queen in what seems to be essentially a proper graduate job, shouldn’t you be paid enough not to rely on hand-outs from anybody?

    Like many people, I believe we have a big problem with the benefits system in this country – in particular, far too many people are reliant on housing benefit. Many of those are people who are IN work. This is crazy. If the minimum wage isn’t enough for people to live on without state hand-outs, I think that’s a sign that we have fundamental problems with wages v cost of living. These need fixing – and fast.

    As low-earners, young people are the ones noticing this most accutely. It wasn’t always like this. And you are right – the numbers just don’t add up.

37. Sarah on April 6, 2012 at 8:31 pm

    Tanya, have you heard the news about plans to remove housing benefit from the under-25s? Next feature for Graduate Fog??

38. Alex on April 24, 2012 at 11:40 pm

    Don’t forget that under-25s – i.e. most recent graduates – get less in-work benefits as well: no Working Tax Credit if childless, a reduced rate of Housing Benefit (and a reduced dole if out-of-work).

    I’d kill for £18K or £20K. And £20K in 2000 is c. £27K according to thisismoney’s inflation calculator – very good for an office manager these days.

    I’m on £7.41/h as a temp now :), after 12 long weeks on a few pence above NMW til the Temporary Workers Regulations kicked in (I was so afraid we’d be out in week 11 😉 ) Though it does go a lot further up here in Birmingham of course…

39. Sarah on April 25, 2012 at 9:44 am

    @Alex

    Believe me, at the age of 24, it’s very hard for me to forget!!