The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government plans to reduce its workforce by nearly 12% over the next five years through “natural workforce turnover” and voluntary exits.
Junior MHCLG minister Alex Norris gave an update on the department’s plans to bring down the size of its headcount in response to a parliamentary written question from Conservative MP Kevin Hollinrake, who this week became the party’s chair.
Norris had previously told Hollinrake in a response to a written question that the department is aiming to reduce the number of MHCLG civil servants “by at least 10%” over the course of the current Spending Review period.
Pressing for more details, Hollinrake followed-up by asking what the full-time equivalent headcount number of a 10% reduction in the number of civil servants would be, and whether this would involve compulsory and voluntary redundancies.
In his response, Norris said the department is aiming to bring the FTE headcount of its civil servant workforce down from 3,790 in March 2025 to 3,350 by March 2030. This is an 11.6% reduction and would see the FTE headcount drop by 440.
He added: “This will be achieved through utilising natural workforce turnover and the already publicised voluntary exit scheme for staff this year. There are no plans to implement either a compulsory or a voluntary redundancy programme to support this aim.”
The Spending Review period covers 2026-27, 2027-28 and 2028-29 for day-to-day spending, and those years plus 2029-30 for capital spending.
As part of the SR, departments have set out plans to cut administration budget costs by an average of 16% in real terms, with 11% of that to come between 2025-26 and 2028-29 and 5% in 2029-30. MHCLG’s commitment for admin savings is 15%, with 10% of that to be delivered in 2025-26 to 2028-29 and 5% in 2029-30.
A significant amount of these savings will come from departments reducing the size of their workforces and saving money on salaries, which make up a sizeable chunk of admin budgets.
In its efficiency plans, MHCLG set out that it would use AI and insourcing to “enable a more slimline and agile workforce”, and that it had also launched a voluntary exit scheme to help reduce its numbers.