Civil service cull can save £5bn a year
Civil service cull can save £5bn a year, Policy Exchange says
Cutting 80,000 civil service jobs could save the Treasury as much as £5bn pounds a year, a new report has found, as the government seeks to rein in spending in a bid to stick to its fiscal rules.
The research by Westminster think tank Policy Exchange has proposed the 80,000 mandarin cull in a bid to restore the civil service to the size it was prior to the pandemic.
This follows talks of mass layoffs in the government’s upcoming spending review, in addition to significant cuts which have already been made.
The proposal comes at a time when the Treasury is under pressure to fund the delivery of ambitious projects across various departments, while also facing higher inflation and unemployment rates.
But Policy Exchange identified that dismissals are only at 0.5 per cent across the civil service monolith, and recommended that comms staff are halved.
Cutting down the number of mandarins occupying department halls could restore the UK’s public sector to pre-pandemic numbers, which could lead to considerable savings, Policy Exchange argued.
“Significant pay restraint,” has seen median pay fall across the board. The report argued in favor of enabling staff to take home more pay in exchange for smaller pensions, and increasing salaries at the higher levels “which have become increasingly uncompetitive.”
Civil service roles see significant turnover, as civil servants cannot be promoted within a role, and therefore must apply for an entirely new position to benefit from a higher salary.
Policy Exchange argued that pay progression within a role should be introduced to ensure staffers stay put and rack up more experience.
Civil servant veterans speak
Stephen Webb,former director at the Home Office and Cabinet Office, author of the report,pointed out the existence of plans to “make reductions of £1.5bn by the end of the Parliament,” but added that these could go “further” and “faster,” instead delivering £5bn in reductions across one or two years.
John Kingman, former second permanent secretary at the Treasury, said increases in policy staff in particular over the past few years “was not deliberate or thought-through. It was simply chronic mismanagement.”
Kingman added that this is not a matter of politics, as parties across the ideological spectrum should value efficiency. “An over-resourced administrative machine inevitably generates ever more processes for itself and slows itself down.
“It is also extremely unlikely to create a working environment that can attract or retain the best talent,” Kingman said.
The report found that on average, high-ranking civil servants have fewer years under their belts compared to their counterparts in the 1980s and 1990s.