During my time in the civil service, I dealt with many exits – most notably thousands of people leaving HMRC, including through compulsory redundancies.
It’s a hugely emotional time for people, with difficult choices for both employers and employees to make. You shouldn’t underestimate the resource and effort that goes into the process or the toll it can have on teams and line managers running schemes for voluntary exits, voluntary redundancies, and compulsory redundancies. At the same time, organisations are likely to be under pressure to restructure and cut costs, which adds another layer of complexity to an already challenging situation.
The 2025 Spending Review set target reductions for all departments’ administration budgets of at least 11% in real terms by 2028-29, and 16% by 2029-30, which will see government employers making large-scale staff reductions.
Over 8,500 civil servants are expected to leave under current exit schemes up to the end of March 2027, at a cost of £536m, and more exits and redundancies are expected to be announced, both in the civil service and wider public sector.
From my own experience running schemes, my main concern was always around holding on to good people and ensuring we had the skills we needed for the future, as set out in our workforce plans. This was slightly easier when I was closing offices, as the decision criteria were based solely on location. Rolling out broader voluntary exit schemes is much more complex, as it involves carefully selecting the criteria for who can leave – and that can be a very delicate and challenging process.
Ideally, you would have a team who’ve dealt with something similar before and have the skills and experience to understand what needs to happen. But often this isn’t the case, which is one of the reasons we’ve produced our National Audit Office guide on government exits and redundancies. It sets out the challenges and risks you should look out for, and ideas on how to tackle them.
Challenges for government
We have identified six challenges which government departments and organisations need to face when running exit and redundancy schemes. They concern how organisations can best manage the impact of staff exits on organisational and workforce capability, and the value for money considerations that should be borne in mind. The challenges are:
- Delivering with fewer people: How can organisations keep running smoothly even with smaller teams?
- Retaining top talent while enabling poorer performers to leave: How can organisations ensure decisions on who to keep and who can leave are based on effective performance management arrangements?
- Supporting everyone through change: How can organisations meet the needs of both those leaving and those staying?
- Minimising exit and redundancy costs: How can organisations reduce the financial impact of staff exits and redundancies?
- Thinking beyond individual organisations: How can organisations take a joined-up, government-wide approach to exits and redundancies?
- Ensuring longer-term value for money: How can organisations make sure today’s decisions offer long-term value for money?
When it comes to exits and redundancies, government departments must balance value for money with longer-term workforce planning. The challenge is not just to reduce numbers, but to retain skills and capability, all while maintaining morale.
At the heart of this is ensuring that public services remain productive and resilient. Public services rely on good and motivated people, and when it comes to the difficult business of staff exits and redundancies, this needs to be at the forefront of every decision – making sure that people are treated with respect and care, and that the organisation is still able to deliver for the public both now and in the future.
Kate Caulkin is the people and operational management insights director at the National Audit Office. Read the NAO's guide on government exits and redundancies here