The Spending Review was the moment when we saw the colour of the new government’s money.
Maybe it’s because I’m a bit closer to it, but I felt a little underwhelmed. These are normally big bangs in the political and fiscal calendar but, probably because so much had been drip fed over the last few weeks and months, it felt more of a whimper. It was, however, very familiar. Maybe every chancellor gets captured by the machine, but for all the talk of doing government differently, and particularly on missions, this felt like 2010 rather than 1998 or 2000.
As the ever-sensible Institute for Government noted: “Whatever role the ‘mission groups’ have played in the Spending Review, it has not resulted in joint budgets with shared outcomes. This is a missed opportunity to incentivise the kind of collaboration that has limited the effectiveness of previous spending reviews.”
Spending reviews are ultimately where we see political choice and priorities. Not everything in government comes at a cost, but most things do. This is when they put their money where their mouth is. I’ll leave it to others to opine on those choices. I want to talk about the consequences for the civil service.
Governments can have bigger or smaller administrations, that’s their democratic right. For all the column inches devoted to it, the civil service is a relatively small bit of the public sector. To give that some context, the country spends about 10 times the cost of the civil service on the NHS alone. It would be glib to suggest that efficiency cannot make a difference or to talk about hundreds of millions or even billions of pounds as if it was a mere drop in the ocean. But often, it is easy for commentators to talk about the civil service as if it is the whole public sector – implying that addressing issues of efficiency, bureaucracy or waste is the solution to all those challenges.
The civil service is still a big sector, of course. It has around 500,000 staff who have livelihoods, mortgages and families that are affected by these decisions. How would they have judged the spending round?
Too often, government forgets it’s also an employer. What does the Spending Review mean for its employees? It’s hard to tell.
As I said, governments get to decide the size of the civil service, but when budgets are being cut to the scale we’ve just witnessed, there are two key questions on people’s minds. The first is, “Will I still have a job?” I’ve seen a few of the bulletins to staff in departments. Most are so high level as to be meaningless in answering that question – only one actually spoke about numbers. Maybe that’s understandable. But given the figures that have been published, often showing double-digit cuts in admin or day-to-day spending, it is not unreasonable for staff to be worried about staffing reductions that may follow of that scale or, indeed, more.
The government committed to publishing a strategic workforce plan alongside the Spending Review. Now we’re told we’ll have to wait for that. Meanwhile, staff are left to speculate and do the math. In reality, even under austerity when the figures were bleaker, the majority of staff did not lose their job. But until you know the scale and, indeed, location of those reductions, what happens is the majority of staff become fearful for their jobs. That leads people to make choices. If people are uncertain about losing their job, or what an organisation will look like post-reduction, they may choose to take control. Often, those who have the most marketable skills are the ones to leave.
That then brings us to the second question: “What will my job look like if I do stay?” For all the talk of AI and efficiency, there is scant detail. Even in the Office for Value for Money (which does sound a bit DOGE), where they published Departmental Efficiency Plans, it’s all a bit, well, consultant-speak. Would anyone be able to recognise which specific department the following quote was about? “Increased automation and use of AI to reduce reliance on manual processes; streamlining to reduce duplication, particularly in non-frontline functions […]; and strategic workforce planning that combines development of critical skill sets alongside careful recruitment controls that are calibrated to protect operational capacity whilst responding to changing demands.”
That’s why the strategic workforce plans were so important. That was the chance to tell staff what the impact of the Spending Review would mean for them. Numbers, location and an indication of whether resources will match commitments.
It’s not just about treating half a million public servants with a bit of dignity and respect. It’s also good business sense to give clarity to the vast majority of staff who will ultimately still be here – if they choose to be.
Dave Penman is general secretary of the FDA union