Civil service reform edges forward

I was pleased to see the government now recognises the productivity collapse in the public sector. They say they wish to reduce the civil service by 10,000. That would be a modest start.

They need to be more ambitious. Applying a policy of natural wastage to avoid any redundancies should free more than 30,000 a year. As people retire or move to another job so you can slim the establishment and promote or transfer existing staff into the important jobs you need to keep. A speedier policy could augment this with a call for voluntary redundancies, though this requires suitable severance payments.

It is also important to widen this to include the enlarged administrative cadres of the wider public sector, especially the NHS.

73 Comments

  1. Mark B
    December 13, 2024

    Good morning.

    . . . they wish . . .

    And so do we, but that does not get things done. And there is the tricky issue of the paymasters, the unions to consider. I wonder how well this will go down with them ?

    1. PeteB
      December 13, 2024

      Agree Mark. A reduction of 10,000 in a public sector workforce(*) of about 6 million is hardly a tough ask, especially when you consider that workforce(*) increased by 200,000 over the last year. Can’t see the Government achieving it though…
      (*) I use workforce in the loosest sense.

      1. Mike Wilson
        December 13, 2024

        I use workforce in the loosest sense.

        No, they are a work force. They force the rest of us to work very hard to pay the taxes that keep them in cushy jobs with big pensions.

  2. Stred
    December 13, 2024

    DEZNZ or Mad Ed’s ministry has 4500 civil servants who are destroying the steel, chemicals, oil and gas, car and van, industry and farming while holding up nuclear and arranging for the UK to have insufficient electricity in 5 years time. Perhaps sack the lot and employ a few electrical and production engineers.

    1. Donna
      December 13, 2024

      Good plan. Gets my vote.

      1. Mark B
        December 13, 2024

        Ditto

    2. Peter Wood
      December 13, 2024

      Yep, you’d think NZ and the destruction of our manufacturing industry would have the Tory mps howling from the rooftops; but no. Just as obvious is the clear road to insufficient energy for basic household and transport needs, which to his credit our host has highlighted on many occasions, BUT again the Tories are almost mute on this coming catastrophe. What use is the present PCP?
      Mad Milibrain is going to destroy this country. I’ve decided Starmer is a latterday Fred Kite, for those that remember great British satire. He also went to Oxford….

      1. Atlas
        December 13, 2024

        Agreed.

    3. Michelle
      December 13, 2024

      If you’ve recently seen the application process for any civil service job you’ll know importance is not placed on any experience in the work place.

    4. Northern Lass
      December 13, 2024

      Agreed wholeheartedly!

    5. Lifelogic
      December 13, 2024

      +1000 then move on to the many other net harm workers the road blocking, HS2, the duff degree and duff universities, the planning blocking QUANGOs, the BoE, OBR, climate change committee, 25% of workers in the NHS…

    6. hefner
      December 14, 2024

      Stred, So would you keep the CEOs of the UK’s 20 energy companies (as serving the domestic markets at the beginning of April 2024)?
      energy-review.co.uk ‘List of all UK energy suppliers 2024 (domestic only)’

      Do you think that an electricity market as divided and diffuse as it presently is is a good, not so good, bad thing for the country?
      ofgem.gov.uk 29/10/2024 ‘List of all electricity licensees including suppliers’.

      Do you really think that the present state of affairs is due to your 4,500 DENZ civil servants working in the last six months under Mr Milliband?
      Or could it be (just a thought) that the present situation has been building up over the life of at least 10 PMs?

      1. Martin in Bristol
        December 14, 2024

        You feel nationalisation would achieve a huge improvement then hefner.
        Can you show us how that would happen.
        looking forward to your expert response.

  3. Ian wragg
    December 13, 2024

    With the unions now firmly incharge do you actually think this will happen. The CS is over 100,000 more than pre pandemic and it would be interesting to know exactly what this extra number does.
    We all know that there has been a proliferation of DEI non jobs which should be the first for the axe but seeing as they’re still recruiting that’s unlikely.
    We will probably have to wait for Reform and see what results Musk gts before any real action is taken

    1. Dave Andrews
      December 13, 2024

      What do the extra numbers do? Well, they implement the additional legislation government can’t help themselves implementing.
      Diversity jobs are needed because the courts are ever expanding ways to implement the Equality Act, and policies need to keep up.

      1. Mickey Taking
        December 13, 2024

        and the lawyers want an ever increasing income stream.

    2. hefner
      December 13, 2024

      Kind of O/T: ft.com 13/12/2024 ‘Reform UK calls for Thames Water to be renationalised’.
      Richard Tice: ‘Water is not a competitive market, it is a monopoly’.
      Reform’s manifesto pledged to bring 50 percent of all utilities into public ownership with the other half to be purchased by British pension funds.

      1. Sam
        December 13, 2024

        Are you now a Reform supporter hefner?

  4. agricola
    December 13, 2024

    You might reduce the CS with natural wastage but that is only a start. Hire and fire should be in the hands of ministers. Employment contracts should be the order of the day and the signing of the Official Secrets Act should be re-emphasised.

    The NHS carries , at 47 % of those it employs , an excessive burdon of scribes. I suspect it is top heavy and in need of a major cull between ministry and trust. Look at private healthcare as an example. In my case, insurance claim, appointment, X- ray, consultant, and a course of action decided. All in two weeks.

    GPs have become gatekeepers to the NHS, offering Ibuprofen and maybe physiotherapy if you are fortunate. Suspicions of cancer might get a swifter reaction. Over population has swamped the NHS as it has almost everything else. As with energy, we have the means, but neither the wit nor will to apply solutions.

    1. Mickey Taking
      December 13, 2024

      in our fairly wide experience physiotherapy is either stated to be not available until after many weeks wait, in which case natural healing might occur, or the pain takes the patient off to private help.

  5. Ian wragg
    December 13, 2024

    Off topic but very interesting. We are currently running gas and nuclear plants on near 100% and exporting to France and Norway at £86 per mwh. This is conserving their gas and later in the day we will be Importing at £300 per mwh
    Is this what Milibrain means by a clean power super power.

    1. Dave Andrews
      December 13, 2024

      National Grid policy – buy high, sell low. They’ve gone to the wrong business school.

      1. majorfrustration
        December 13, 2024

        and then of course there is the Bank of England and its bond sales – all been to the same business school.

    2. gregory martin
      December 13, 2024

      Considering renewables are ,at 9.50 am today, contributing only 3Gw , I’m surprised we have any to trade.

    3. Northern Lass
      December 13, 2024

      Agreed wholeheartedly!

    4. Mitchel
      December 13, 2024

      Reuters,12/12/24:”EXCLUSIVE:Rosneft,Reliance agree biggest ever India-Russia oil supply deal,sources say.”

      “Rosneft will supply nearly 500,000 bpd of crude oil to India.This is the largest energy deal ever struck between the two countries.The 10 year agreement is worth roughly $10 bn pa at current prices………..Russian oil accounts for more than one third of India’s energy imports….India is the largest importer of Russian oil,replacing the EU,and is one of the fastest growing energy markets.The oil will be supplied to Reliance’s Jamnagar refining complex in Gujarat, the largest in the world…..The new deal will account for roughly half of all Russia’s seaborne exports from Russian ports,leaving not much supply available for other traders and middlemen.”

      Cutting out the (western) middleman-that’s what BRICS is all about.

    5. Mike Wilson
      December 13, 2024

      @Ian Wragg where do you find those numbers? Why don’t we charge what they charge us?

  6. David Andrews
    December 13, 2024

    They need to add another zero to 10,000 to be taken seriously.

    1. Mickey Taking
      December 13, 2024

      it is more likely a zero will drop off than be added!

  7. Bloke
    December 13, 2024

    In business, an organisation making brown furniture virtually nobody wants, and switching to sell firewood for energy instead has to change.
    The Civil Service exists to serve only what government requires. When new policies are planned, the shape and size of the workforce should be forced into line. Maintaining worthless jobs for their own sake destroys values.

  8. Donna
    December 13, 2024

    Dispensing with 10,000 (no doubt junior) Civil Servants will achieve the square root of SFA. This is just a signal to try and calm the bond markets.

    If they were serious they’d be talking about a 10% reduction across the entire Public Sector and Quangocracy and shedding complete departments.

    1. James1
      December 13, 2024

      Not only do complete departments need shedding, complete ministries need shedding.

    2. HF Clark
      December 13, 2024

      Local councils too. My LD shower is spending profligate sums in capital and manpower to become a ‘zero carbon’ district by 2030. And joining up green space to preserve and enhance wildlife. Yes, we voted for flight paths for bats, didn’t we.
      Blasted fools also cut back on maintenance by leaving hedges ‘natural’, all the while seeing farmers do their usual good job of shaping their hedges to preserve their strength and usefulness.

    3. gregory martin
      December 13, 2024

      If they were serious, they should consider conscription from the civil service to bolster our armed forces. Could resolve two problems at minimal cost.

    4. Sharon
      December 13, 2024

      Donna

      Will the civil servants allow their numbers to be culled? They seem to be the power behind government.

      I learned this week that Cabinet meetings are literally scripted by their advisers…. and if they go off script, they are taken aside after the meeting.

      1. Donna
        December 14, 2024

        Well, I think we’re about to witness a noisy power struggle and I very much doubt that Keir-Ching! intends to fight very hard. It’s all a display: as he told us the real work goes on at Davos, Westminster is just a tribal pantomime.

        I lost any respect I might have had for Cummings when he enthusiastically supported the Covid Tyranny but I am inclined to believe him over the Cabinet “farce.” The quality of Ministers is so low now (not a single one in Two-Tier’s Cabinet has any business experience) and they’re not capable of holding a high level discussion and contributing anything worthwhile.

  9. Sakara Gold
    December 13, 2024

    Many folk of the green persuasion are dismayed that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has signed contracts for carbon capture and storage projects on Teesside, (the East Coast Cluster) with construction expected to start in mid-2025 and a start-up scheduled for 2027

    This project, which will get £8.7bn of government subsidy over the next 25 years, is a collaboration by the fossil fuel majors Equinor, Total Energies and BP. Equinor’s spokesman said the plan was to capture, compress, transport and store “up to” four million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year from three Teesside industrial projects.

    Vast amounts of imported gas will be used to undertake the CCS process, rendering it hugely expensive and indefinitely reliant on government subsidy. CCS is impossible to make zero carbon and will fail to separate UK electricity prices from the volatile gas market.

    Miliband and Starmer have been deceived by CCS bullshit from the fossil fuel lobby. The money would be better spent on upgrading the grid, more EV charging points or the grid-scale energy storage systems developed by British Universities

    Reply We agree CCS is a bad waste of tax revenue

    1. Ian B
      December 13, 2024

      @Sakara Gold – not meant against what you are saying, but I do wish people generally would stop using the words ‘ government subsidy’. Government particularly UK Governments do not have ‘money’, just legal access to your wallet and bank accounts – it is Taxpayers Money. No one other than the Taxpayer is funding the religious, ideological zealots that have stolen the UK’s democracy

      The taxpayer in the UK doesn’t get the usual 2 year democratic option to confirm the States direction, but has to endure 5 years of hiatus to survive while getting ripped off left right and centre

    2. Lifelogic
      December 13, 2024

      CCS is indeed an appalling waste of tax revenue.

      This as:-
      1. a bit more CO2 plant, tree, seaweed and crop food is a net good anyway as to is slightly warmer (and the warming from CO2 even a doubling of it would be very small indeed anyway.
      2. It wastes typically 30% of the energy produced pointlessly capturing this net good CO2
      3. It put up the price of the energy by circa 80% due to this wasted energy plus the capital costs of the systems needed for this worse than pointless capture.

    3. Original Richard
      December 13, 2024

      SG:

      What “grid scale energy systems developed by British Universities? There aren’t any. That is why NESO recommended in their advice to Miliband to keep 35 GW of unabated gas plants running for when renewables fail. Although this does reduce the CO2 emissions it does more than double the cost of electricity as we are running two parallel systems. The more chaotically intermittent renewables employed the greater the expense of grid stabilisation, distribution and systems to cope with intermittency.

      1. Original Richard
        December 13, 2024

        The only serious “grid scale energy storage”so far suggested is the Royal Society’s Large Scale Electricity Storage report using hydrogen storage. This came up with a price for electricity 3 times today’s price even when assuming turbine and electrolysed efficiencies are doubled.

    4. Roy Grainger
      December 13, 2024

      There aren’t any grid scale energy storage systems and there never will be. UK has only two sites suitable for pumped water storage and grid-scale battery storage would require UK to buy the entire world one-year supply of Lithium costing several trillion pounds and do the same 10 years later to replace them. People talking about grid-scale storage are simply showing their complete lack of scientific knowledge – Miliband was at it the other day for example.

    5. Mike Wilson
      December 13, 2024

      or the grid-scale energy storage systems developed by British Universities

      What grid scale storage systems?

    6. Stred
      December 13, 2024

      Blimey. You are dead right. As far as I know, this project is for CO2 to be split from hydrogen in a reformation plant and then the hydrogen will be sold for combustion and the product will be water. The electricity produced overall will require 60% more methane. Then BP or whoever will also charge for pumping it down into old gas fields under the North Sea, where it may stay forever or perhaps not.

  10. IanT
    December 13, 2024

    Just using natural wastage (ie headcount freeze) is a useful way of reducing total numbers but doesn’t really cut the deadwood out. A planned redundancy programme (at least on the first 10%) allows managers to use hindsight to get rid of hiring errors. Of course, it helps to winnow the poor managers first. Brutal but neccessary I’m afraid.

    1. Mickey Taking
      December 13, 2024

      Insisting on no more WFH but all CS must return to office base would possibly increase natural wastage in a way that no difference might be observed.

    2. Lifelogic
      December 13, 2024

      Indeed it also discriminates again people wanting state sector jobs who do not have them already. They need to fire the many pointless, net harm or useless employees.

  11. Sakara Gold
    December 13, 2024

    I am appalled that in this country in 2024, an innocent 10yo girl can be systematically beaten to death by her father despite the police, social workers, the NSPCC, her neighbours and her mother all being aware of what was going on

    Sending this odious individual to a lengthy prison sentence after the event apparently makes everybody feel better. As the professionals involved pass the buck from one to another, in pathetic attempts to evade the blame, they should also be in the dock.

    RIP Sara.

    1. graham1946
      December 13, 2024

      I suspect this was the same scenario of the abused girls in the northern towns – ethnicity and fear of being labelled racist – far more important to today’s authorities than the torture and death of a poor little girl.

    2. Mickey Taking
      December 13, 2024

      Social workers being refused access to possibly vulnerable children ought to be able to insist ‘let me in now to see the child, else I will return with the Police’.

    3. Lynn Atkinson
      December 13, 2024

      Cultural enrichment. Get used to it.

    4. Mike Wilson
      December 13, 2024

      I don’t follow the news but this sort of thing is a regular occurrence. Like all the public sector, the police and social services seem to be unable to do their jobs.

      1. a-tracy
        December 16, 2024

        Mike, you only hear of the things they get wrong, none of the hundreds of children they successfully protect.

    5. Lifelogic
      December 13, 2024

      Indeed the appalling man clearly had severe mental health issues.

      The real blame lies with the state sector for failing to act despite being told endlessly of the issue. One might argue the state sector were worse than useless. This as people who endlessly told them then
      naturally assumed suitable action would be taken. Without this pretence from the state sector then some people would surely have taken direct action themselves.

    6. Mark B
      December 13, 2024

      This is not an isolated incident. Over many years there has been systematic abuse that the State has been aware of and ignored. It has even gone as far as to cover things up.

      Why so surprised ?

  12. Ian B
    December 13, 2024

    Sir John
    “Civil service reform edges forward” Nothing has changed and no demands have been made this Century so why would you think it will change going forward?

    People talk, just after a sound-bite – then do nothing. It is the Blob/Civil Service, the bureaucrats that control Parliament as it has been proved time and time again over the last 25 years, would they allow change? Common sense says something had to give, but with a broken non performing democracy ‘it ain’t going to be Sir Humphries mob’

    Reply Maybe, but it is different to hear Labour Ministers complaining about the civil service and making 2 proposals for change which are not big enough to do much.

  13. Denis Cooper
    December 13, 2024

    Off topic, I think people in Syria need these Syrian doctors more than the Germans, who should train their own:

    https://euobserver.com/migration/ar80c6769a

    “Some 5,800 Syrian doctors are currently working in Germany”

    On Channel 4 News last night it was stated that the $10 billion a year that the Assad family gained from making and supplying illegal drugs to its neighbours and beyond was greater than the GDP of Syria, and I find that this may well be true when the GDP is expressed in US dollars rather than the much devalued Syrian pounds:

    https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=SYP&to=USD&view=10Y

    but that does not necessarily reflect the standard of living in Syria, where life is conducted using the pounds:

    https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/SYR/syrian-arab-republic/gdp-gross-domestic-product

    https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/SYR/syrian-arab-republic/gdp-per-capita

    1. a-tracy
      December 16, 2024

      It makes me wonder just how well Syrian doctors are trained, do they do the exact same rigorous courses that take 3-4 A grades to even get on a course in the UK, then 4-5 years, then 2 years foundation training, are they the same?

  14. Bryan Harris
    December 13, 2024

    It remains to be seen just how effective HMG will be in trimming CS numbers.

    Personally I don’t see them as being serious – they are so set in having a big government infrastructure, and they would potentially lose voters if they sacked a lot of people.

    Getting rid of people won’t lead to improvements on their own. The structure and purpose of the CS needs to be re-evaluated and modernised.

    Chances are that by this time next year nothing will have changed.

  15. Nick
    December 13, 2024

    In an episode of Yes Prime Minister Jim Hacker proposes a cull of civil servants. Sir Humphrey blandly explains that to carry it out yet more civil servants must be hired.

    As Enoch observed, “They think it’s a comedy but it’s really a documentary”.

    HMG’s greed is grotesque, compulsive and bottomless. It already devours £45 out of every £100 we make and will gobble as much more as we let it pile on its plate. It’s the duty of democratic politicians to make it diet before it has a heart attack, but what chance they will do it under this – or any other – government?

    1. a-tracy
      December 16, 2024

      Don’t they just bring in consultants to fire the gun, don’t they simply do the easiest early retirement at 57 with a big bung plus a fat pension. Do they ever look at long-term sick and move those people into work they can do, even if only part-time or out? Otherwise, it is a costly sick benefit workforce.

  16. William Long
    December 13, 2024

    It is quite a step forward that a Labour Government is even talking about this, but, as so often the actions does not match the words. 10,000 is nothing in the scheme of things.

  17. Wanderer
    December 13, 2024

    I understand that President Milei of Argentina has fired 33,000 public employees in his first year. They have about 3.2m public workers (55% of the workforce).

    So, it’s tough going and there is no simple fix, even for someone who calls the public sector “an illness” and says his “contempt for the state is infinite”. Not sentiments shared by Starmer…

  18. Keith from Leeds
    December 13, 2024

    Sorry, Sir John, but even you must know this is a joke. There are 530,000 Civil Servants, so losing 10,000 will make not the slightest difference, and they will quickly be replaced.
    400,000 need to go, as a minimum, and no recruitment for at least three years. Then, you might actually achieve something. But Rachel, from accounts, Energy destroying Ed and Kier the Kangeroo, jumping around uselessly, will collectively destroy the UK economy.
    Have we ever had such a low-calibre bunch in government?

  19. ChrisS
    December 13, 2024

    A 10% reduction in the civil service establishment is nowhere near enough.

    It needs to be far more than that : look at the numbers pre-pandemic, and then take 10% of of that figure.
    And that’s just for starters.

  20. Original Richard
    December 13, 2024

    For those civil service departments, quangos, regulators and other public institutions not shut down completely I suggest they initiate, organise and fund their own pay rises by deciding their own staff cutbacks. If they cut back by 10% they get a 5% pay rise in return. If they cut back by 50% they get a 25% pay rise etc. Service quality and effectiveness to become no worse as a result of course.

  21. Roy Grainger
    December 13, 2024

    10,000 is 2% of the total. It’s a negligible amount and they probably know it’s going to be achieved without any effort at all on their part just through already planned wastage in some areas. Nothing to frighten the unions there.

  22. Mike Wilson
    December 13, 2024

    The idea of natural wastage and prompting those left to do the senior jobs is inherently flawed. Promotion should be on merit, not because Fred has left.

    1. a-tracy
      December 16, 2024

      Many people have merit, waiting for promotion, looked over because they’re not ticking the right diversity boxes at the moment, so people get hired without the right qualifications, demoralising all the others in the team, this seems to cause a spiral of despondency and people just doing enough, or the decent ones leaving.

  23. Mike Wilson
    December 13, 2024

    Increasing headcount is so easy. Reducing it seems to be impossible. The unions say NO!

  24. glen cullen
    December 13, 2024

    609 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday from the safe country of France …just in time for a free christmas dinner

  25. K
    December 13, 2024

    We are in a national emergency. 600 arrivals by boat today, nearly all young men and we know nothing about them. Hundreds of thousands of them, now.

    I have an ominous feeling about this.

    1. Donna
      December 14, 2024

      In 50 years time – maybe sooner – this country will resemble Syria.

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