Government plans to axe up to 91,000 civil servants over three years will require deep cuts to public services and cost at least £1bn in redundancy payments, according to a Whitehall review.
Boris Johnson in May unveiled plans for the near 20 per cent reduction in headcount, and in June said(opens a new window) he could “prune” back the civil service to 2016 levels “without harming” frontline services
However, government insiders said a review by Steve Barclay, his former chief of staff, had found otherwise.
They added that the Barclay review had led the Treasury to “go cold” on Johnson’s plans after the emergence of the full upfront cost and impact on public services.
But foreign secretary Liz Truss, the frontrunner to replace Johnson in September as Tory leader and prime minister, is backing proposals to cut civil service costs. She has vowed to wage “a war on Whitehall waste”.
One Whitehall insider who has worked on the plans to cut 91,000 civil servants said that it had become clear that Johnson had made his announcement — which was greeted with enthusiasm on the rightwing of the Conservative party — without fully thinking through the implications.
“You can only deliver 91,000 cuts by actual cuts to major frontline services,” added the insider. “There’s no way you can get to that number through efficiency savings or reductions in HQ staff.”
One government insider said the proposals to axe 91,000 civil servants would involve “serious cuts” to staff at HM Revenue and Customs, Border Force and prisons. “And you couldn’t protect jobs outside London,” added the insider.
Although estimates were not finalised, another Whitehall insider said a figure of £2bn had been discussed as a working assumption on the cost of compulsory redundancy payments.
Truss’ campaign team endorsed the government plan to cut 91,000 civil servants last week — after being forced into a U-turn on proposals to introduce regional pay scales in the public sector to save an estimated £8.8bn a year.
Brandon Lewis, the former Northern Ireland secretary who is backing Truss to be the next Tory leader, told the BBC the ditched policy on regional pay boards was part of a “wider package around dealing with waste in Whitehall”.
Citing Johnson’s target to cut 91,000 officials, which would return the civil service to the historically low levels of 2016 that followed six years of reductions under the then prime minister David Cameron, Lewis said: “We’ve got to get back to those levels.” The proposed cuts are meant to save £3.5bn a year.
The government currently employs 475,000 civil servants compared with a low point of 384,000 in 2016. The biggest growth in officials has come at the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Department of Work and Pensions.
The demands on Whitehall have increased in recent years, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic but also because of government policies such as recruiting 20,000 police officers.
The UK’s departure from the EU has required the expansion of the Department of International Trade to negotiate trade deals, while Britain’s post-Brexit immigration regime has increased demands on immigration and Border Force staff.
The Cabinet Office said: “As people across the country are facing huge living costs, the public rightly expect their government to lead by example and to be run as efficiently as possible.”
It added it was too early to speculate on how the reductions in headcount would be made, but that a range of options included not filling vacancies as civil servants move to the private sector or retire. Consultations with trade unions were continuing, said the Cabinet Office.
It’s almost as if front line staff that either work directly with the public; or systems specifically processed for the public make up the majority of the civil service.
The next majority is support staff that keep everything and the effective schizophrenic approach to government that is taken barely functioning.
Only after those you might find those that wont impact services but thats a very small number
Edit: I also wonder what happened in 2016 that resulted in the UK government have to take on far more responsibility than it had before. It’s on the tip of my tounge what was it again oh something starting with B.
Those geniuses at the FT have discovered the current Government’s subtle plan!
Funny, that
They’ll cut anything but their own salaries.
How about means testing politicians on their salary and expenses claiming?
So they’re going to cut 91,000 jobs to save 3.5b per year, but will have to pay out 2b in redundancy packages, Christ knows how much on unemployment/universal credit in the short term, displace thousands and effectively cut front line services to achieve it.
Fucking bonkers plan, this is nothing more than managed decline. Tories want everyone in the country on the teat of private business, just watch the contracts roll in when they *discover* that they need to plug the gap, buy your cerco and g4s shares now people, they’ll be running everything soon.
I genuinely think the tories should be jailed for treason, and despite my commitment to a fair criminal justice system, we should throw the fucking key away
How will the public cope without diversity and inclusion managers?
This is all to do with the Tories ideological war on public sector employees, more a political decision rather than fiscal.
Where is the document detailing the audit required to identify 91,000 excess civil servants?
The sooner the GE is here the better, the Tories already know they’re toast.
There as talk a few years back about cutting the number of MPs. I don’t think that happened, should be more than halved, 300 MPs max, that would save some money with their second homes & £150k a year expenses.
Cut police commissioners completely, halve local councillors, sick if all the layers of govt.
I’m sure there are some civil servant positions that can be reduced but nothing like 91k
keep civil servants and axe mp’s useless tossers
They did this in NI a few years ago by running a volontary redundancy scheme – as a result they lost the most experienced staff and were not allowed to replace them for at least 2 years. end result a loss of skills, still suffering now.
Is that not the point? Make the service worse, get people riled up and bring in the consultants from the Big 4 to fill in the gaps. It’s a swift journey to privatisation once their case has been made.
lol. there already aren’t any “public services” to speak of in this country. They seem to really want that general strike
Yeah no shit Sherlock! Plus it’s going to add 91K people on the dole for the tax payer to support! That’s not “sound money”! This cannot be allowed to happen!
New report shows water is wet.
Ahhh The UK.
need to save a bit of money because Rishi decided it would be a great idea to spunk the savings account balance on dodgy PPE contracts.
What should we cut?
A shitty train line nobody wants or needs, in the era of WFH?
A Fucking gold plated yacht for Liz / Charlie to fuck about in?
Noooooo, of course not, let’s undermine services even further and make the so understaffed they don’t function.
17 comments
Government plans to axe up to 91,000 civil servants over three years will require deep cuts to public services and cost at least £1bn in redundancy payments, according to a Whitehall review.
Boris Johnson in May unveiled plans for the near 20 per cent reduction in headcount, and in June said(opens a new window) he could “prune” back the civil service to 2016 levels “without harming” frontline services
However, government insiders said a review by Steve Barclay, his former chief of staff, had found otherwise.
They added that the Barclay review had led the Treasury to “go cold” on Johnson’s plans after the emergence of the full upfront cost and impact on public services.
But foreign secretary Liz Truss, the frontrunner to replace Johnson in September as Tory leader and prime minister, is backing proposals to cut civil service costs. She has vowed to wage “a war on Whitehall waste”.
One Whitehall insider who has worked on the plans to cut 91,000 civil servants said that it had become clear that Johnson had made his announcement — which was greeted with enthusiasm on the rightwing of the Conservative party — without fully thinking through the implications.
“You can only deliver 91,000 cuts by actual cuts to major frontline services,” added the insider. “There’s no way you can get to that number through efficiency savings or reductions in HQ staff.”
One government insider said the proposals to axe 91,000 civil servants would involve “serious cuts” to staff at HM Revenue and Customs, Border Force and prisons. “And you couldn’t protect jobs outside London,” added the insider.
Although estimates were not finalised, another Whitehall insider said a figure of £2bn had been discussed as a working assumption on the cost of compulsory redundancy payments.
Truss’ campaign team endorsed the government plan to cut 91,000 civil servants last week — after being forced into a U-turn on proposals to introduce regional pay scales in the public sector to save an estimated £8.8bn a year.
Brandon Lewis, the former Northern Ireland secretary who is backing Truss to be the next Tory leader, told the BBC the ditched policy on regional pay boards was part of a “wider package around dealing with waste in Whitehall”.
Citing Johnson’s target to cut 91,000 officials, which would return the civil service to the historically low levels of 2016 that followed six years of reductions under the then prime minister David Cameron, Lewis said: “We’ve got to get back to those levels.” The proposed cuts are meant to save £3.5bn a year.
The government currently employs 475,000 civil servants compared with a low point of 384,000 in 2016. The biggest growth in officials has come at the Ministry of Justice, the Home Office and the Department of Work and Pensions.
The demands on Whitehall have increased in recent years, partly because of the coronavirus pandemic but also because of government policies such as recruiting 20,000 police officers.
The UK’s departure from the EU has required the expansion of the Department of International Trade to negotiate trade deals, while Britain’s post-Brexit immigration regime has increased demands on immigration and Border Force staff.
The Cabinet Office said: “As people across the country are facing huge living costs, the public rightly expect their government to lead by example and to be run as efficiently as possible.”
It added it was too early to speculate on how the reductions in headcount would be made, but that a range of options included not filling vacancies as civil servants move to the private sector or retire. Consultations with trade unions were continuing, said the Cabinet Office.
It’s almost as if front line staff that either work directly with the public; or systems specifically processed for the public make up the majority of the civil service.
The next majority is support staff that keep everything and the effective schizophrenic approach to government that is taken barely functioning.
Only after those you might find those that wont impact services but thats a very small number
Edit: I also wonder what happened in 2016 that resulted in the UK government have to take on far more responsibility than it had before. It’s on the tip of my tounge what was it again oh something starting with B.
Those geniuses at the FT have discovered the current Government’s subtle plan!
Funny, that
They’ll cut anything but their own salaries.
How about means testing politicians on their salary and expenses claiming?
So they’re going to cut 91,000 jobs to save 3.5b per year, but will have to pay out 2b in redundancy packages, Christ knows how much on unemployment/universal credit in the short term, displace thousands and effectively cut front line services to achieve it.
Fucking bonkers plan, this is nothing more than managed decline. Tories want everyone in the country on the teat of private business, just watch the contracts roll in when they *discover* that they need to plug the gap, buy your cerco and g4s shares now people, they’ll be running everything soon.
I genuinely think the tories should be jailed for treason, and despite my commitment to a fair criminal justice system, we should throw the fucking key away
How will the public cope without diversity and inclusion managers?
This is all to do with the Tories ideological war on public sector employees, more a political decision rather than fiscal.
Where is the document detailing the audit required to identify 91,000 excess civil servants?
The sooner the GE is here the better, the Tories already know they’re toast.
There as talk a few years back about cutting the number of MPs. I don’t think that happened, should be more than halved, 300 MPs max, that would save some money with their second homes & £150k a year expenses.
Cut police commissioners completely, halve local councillors, sick if all the layers of govt.
I’m sure there are some civil servant positions that can be reduced but nothing like 91k
keep civil servants and axe mp’s useless tossers
They did this in NI a few years ago by running a volontary redundancy scheme – as a result they lost the most experienced staff and were not allowed to replace them for at least 2 years. end result a loss of skills, still suffering now.
Is that not the point? Make the service worse, get people riled up and bring in the consultants from the Big 4 to fill in the gaps. It’s a swift journey to privatisation once their case has been made.
lol. there already aren’t any “public services” to speak of in this country. They seem to really want that general strike
Yeah no shit Sherlock! Plus it’s going to add 91K people on the dole for the tax payer to support! That’s not “sound money”! This cannot be allowed to happen!
New report shows water is wet.
Ahhh The UK.
need to save a bit of money because Rishi decided it would be a great idea to spunk the savings account balance on dodgy PPE contracts.
What should we cut?
A shitty train line nobody wants or needs, in the era of WFH?
A Fucking gold plated yacht for Liz / Charlie to fuck about in?
Noooooo, of course not, let’s undermine services even further and make the so understaffed they don’t function.
😐
Here comes the age of “computer says no”