BORIS Johnson has written to civil servants telling them there needs to be “fewer” of them as the UK Government is set to slash public sector jobs.
The Prime Minister said in the letter leaked to The Times that the civil service has grown by over 20% since 2016, telling staff that their “colossal presence” will be scaled back.
It comes after the Cabinet Office board signed off plans to close the civil service’s flagship graduate scheme for at least a year as part of plans to reduce staff numbers.
And now it has been revealed that the civil service will be facing significant cuts as the Government tries to save costs due to inflation, the PM told staff.
In the leaked letter, Johnson wrote: “Our civil service has grown by over 20% since 2016. But as we move on to new challenges — including tackling the aftershocks of the pandemic and growing the economy to address the cost of living — we no longer require the State to have the same colossal presence in people’s lives.
“And rolling back the state in turn means we will also need fewer civil servants.”
Johnson then added that although he believes the service civil servants provide is a “great and noble calling”, their jobs are funded by the taxpayer that the government has a “moral duty to spend judiciously”.
He continued: “So we must ensure the cost of government is no greater than absolutely necessary to deliver for the people we serve.
“And as many families and businesses now look at how to reduce their costs in a period of higher global inflation, it is right that we do the same. That is why I have asked my ministerial team and permanent secretaries to develop proposals to return the civil service to the size it was in 2016.”
Johnson told the officials: “I know that this will cause concern and uncertainty and I am sorry for that”.
He promised to “complete this work swiftly and to provide every possible support to anyone affected by the changes that follow”.
Last year about 60,000 people applied for the Fast Stream graduate scheme and more than 1000 of them were offered Whitehall jobs.
Many senior civil servants and permanent secretaries began their careers on the Fast Stream.
According to The Telegraph, the decision to freeze the scheme was signed off in a meeting chaired by Steve Barclay, Johnson’s chief of staff. Levelling-up Secretary Michael Gove is said to have criticised the plan in a Cabinet meeting.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union of senior civil servants, expressed fury at the proposal to close the graduate scheme.
He said: “If you want to know what virtue-signalling, short-termism looks like, this is it.
“The Fast Stream attracts some of the most capable graduates in the country and is about the next generation of leaders — this is venturing on vandalism for the future of the civil service.”
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, also urged a rethink.
She said: “Ministers must urgently explain their rationale for this ill thought through and self-defeating decision.
“This knee-jerk move is proof, if any were needed, that this is not a serious government with any real interest in competent public administration.”
Start from the top down with anyone who’s been fined to save the most money.
How do you “prepare” to become unemployed?
Other than nicking as much office equipment as possible.
Please make me redundant, ive a decade under my belt so will have a fair redundancy pay.
My skills are in demand so my department will rehire me on even more favourable terms in a year or two after I’ve either been working private sector or taken a year off.
I hear from colleagues this isnt the first time this has happened!
He should write a similar letter to his backbenchers.
This will have significant impacts across more than just Whitehall. The MOD has gutted a lot of non-deployed military roles from its stations and replaced them with civil servants over the years to free up more personnel for front line duties.
This was seen as a great way of allowing the armed forces to survive numerous cuts in manning whilst still maintaining the operational output asked of it (which funnily enough didn’t decrease with any of the defence cuts).
Now that the military is basically dependent on these civil servants to run the day-to-day stuff, it’s going to be almost impossible to maintain normal ops with any cuts.
I’m guessing a few (probably Tory donor-owned) private contractors are ready to step in to fill the void, as they already have with MT, stores, infra, training, survival equipment, engineering, catering, logistics etc.
One of the reasons the civil service has been forced to grow in recent years, is to mitigate the damage caused by cuts to other manpower pools across government.
More to do with erosion/purge of ministerial accountability than cost cutting
Really.. you just know they will bodge their figures and end up having to re-hire via agency
I’d go so far as to suggest, looking into which donors, or MP’s have ties to head hunter firms.
Spot on Boris <3
Now get Rishi to give us tax cuts
I suspect Boris will be gone before anyone in the civil service
This is good news
The country is employing a lot if people who do very little
They need to lay off alot of the nhs middle managers aswell
I think most did when he announced 90,000 jobs to be cut. Those with common sense would have been getting their CV sorted and have started looking elsewhere to hedge their bets. Sadly, those will probably also be the staff you would most want to keep.
I think he should prepare too…
Quite the little *problem solver* isn’t he … as long as he’s not the one paying the price.
He should be a good sport and be an example to the civil service.
14 comments
BORIS Johnson has written to civil servants telling them there needs to be “fewer” of them as the UK Government is set to slash public sector jobs.
The Prime Minister said in the letter leaked to The Times that the civil service has grown by over 20% since 2016, telling staff that their “colossal presence” will be scaled back.
It comes after the Cabinet Office board signed off plans to close the civil service’s flagship graduate scheme for at least a year as part of plans to reduce staff numbers.
And now it has been revealed that the civil service will be facing significant cuts as the Government tries to save costs due to inflation, the PM told staff.
In the leaked letter, Johnson wrote: “Our civil service has grown by over 20% since 2016. But as we move on to new challenges — including tackling the aftershocks of the pandemic and growing the economy to address the cost of living — we no longer require the State to have the same colossal presence in people’s lives.
“And rolling back the state in turn means we will also need fewer civil servants.”
Johnson then added that although he believes the service civil servants provide is a “great and noble calling”, their jobs are funded by the taxpayer that the government has a “moral duty to spend judiciously”.
He continued: “So we must ensure the cost of government is no greater than absolutely necessary to deliver for the people we serve.
“And as many families and businesses now look at how to reduce their costs in a period of higher global inflation, it is right that we do the same. That is why I have asked my ministerial team and permanent secretaries to develop proposals to return the civil service to the size it was in 2016.”
Johnson told the officials: “I know that this will cause concern and uncertainty and I am sorry for that”.
He promised to “complete this work swiftly and to provide every possible support to anyone affected by the changes that follow”.
Last year about 60,000 people applied for the Fast Stream graduate scheme and more than 1000 of them were offered Whitehall jobs.
Many senior civil servants and permanent secretaries began their careers on the Fast Stream.
According to The Telegraph, the decision to freeze the scheme was signed off in a meeting chaired by Steve Barclay, Johnson’s chief of staff. Levelling-up Secretary Michael Gove is said to have criticised the plan in a Cabinet meeting.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union of senior civil servants, expressed fury at the proposal to close the graduate scheme.
He said: “If you want to know what virtue-signalling, short-termism looks like, this is it.
“The Fast Stream attracts some of the most capable graduates in the country and is about the next generation of leaders — this is venturing on vandalism for the future of the civil service.”
Angela Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, also urged a rethink.
She said: “Ministers must urgently explain their rationale for this ill thought through and self-defeating decision.
“This knee-jerk move is proof, if any were needed, that this is not a serious government with any real interest in competent public administration.”
Start from the top down with anyone who’s been fined to save the most money.
How do you “prepare” to become unemployed?
Other than nicking as much office equipment as possible.
Please make me redundant, ive a decade under my belt so will have a fair redundancy pay.
My skills are in demand so my department will rehire me on even more favourable terms in a year or two after I’ve either been working private sector or taken a year off.
I hear from colleagues this isnt the first time this has happened!
He should write a similar letter to his backbenchers.
This will have significant impacts across more than just Whitehall. The MOD has gutted a lot of non-deployed military roles from its stations and replaced them with civil servants over the years to free up more personnel for front line duties.
This was seen as a great way of allowing the armed forces to survive numerous cuts in manning whilst still maintaining the operational output asked of it (which funnily enough didn’t decrease with any of the defence cuts).
Now that the military is basically dependent on these civil servants to run the day-to-day stuff, it’s going to be almost impossible to maintain normal ops with any cuts.
I’m guessing a few (probably Tory donor-owned) private contractors are ready to step in to fill the void, as they already have with MT, stores, infra, training, survival equipment, engineering, catering, logistics etc.
One of the reasons the civil service has been forced to grow in recent years, is to mitigate the damage caused by cuts to other manpower pools across government.
More to do with erosion/purge of ministerial accountability than cost cutting
Really.. you just know they will bodge their figures and end up having to re-hire via agency
I’d go so far as to suggest, looking into which donors, or MP’s have ties to head hunter firms.
Spot on Boris <3
Now get Rishi to give us tax cuts
I suspect Boris will be gone before anyone in the civil service
This is good news
The country is employing a lot if people who do very little
They need to lay off alot of the nhs middle managers aswell
I think most did when he announced 90,000 jobs to be cut. Those with common sense would have been getting their CV sorted and have started looking elsewhere to hedge their bets. Sadly, those will probably also be the staff you would most want to keep.
I think he should prepare too…
Quite the little *problem solver* isn’t he … as long as he’s not the one paying the price.
He should be a good sport and be an example to the civil service.