The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is expecting to reduce its headcount by 5% in the current financial year.
The target is detailed in the ‘Departmental Efficiency Plans’ document, which accompanies the Spending Review 2025 Red Book and outlines the day-to-day efficiency savings committed to by each government department over the next four years – and how they plan to achieve them.
While almost all departments’ plans mention the need to either reduce the size of their workforce or streamline roles in certain areas, only Defra has given concrete details of planned headcount cuts within the document.
The department, which has committed to efficiency savings of 3.1% to its day-to-day spend by 2028-29, said in its plan: “Some savings will come from headcount reductions. The department has already reduced headcount by around 8% since July 2024 and will reduce by a further 5% during 2025-26.”
As of March, the month before the 2025-26 financial year began, Defra had a full-time equivalent headcount of 13,165. A 5% reduction would bring this down to around 12,507.
What have other departments said about headcount reductions?
Some departments had already announced planned workforce reductions ahead of SR25.
Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little told MPs in April that up to 540 officials would leave the Cabinet Office through the voluntary exit scheme it launched in December, and that a restructuring over the course of the Spending Review period was set to reduce its headcount by a further 600-700.
While the Cabinet Office plan in the SR25 efficiency document do not mention these figures, they do set out where the cuts might fall.
The document says the Cabinet Office will “rationalise one-to-one line management relationships, through an organisational restructure”.
“By widening the spans of control, the department aims to enhance operational efficiency and reduce managerial overheads leading to benefits of £5m per year by 2028-29."
It says this move will also allow work to be “performed at the right level”, reduce silos and "facilitate greater resource flexibility".
The Department for Transport also set out plans to lose civil servants via voluntary exits in a select committee session with MPs in April.
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, told the Transport Committee that around 300 civil servants are expected to leave under the voluntary exit scheme launched by the department in the autumn – about 8% of the department’s 3,700-strong workforce.
The SR25 efficiency document says DfT’s workforce strategy will "help it become a smaller department, which is more skilled, agile, and productive".
Similarly to the Cabinet Office, it says this strategy will be delivered through changes to "spans of control and layers of leadership". It says the workforce strategy will also be delivered through "refining the department's approach to sponsorship of delivery bodies, increasing resource flexibility, and making greater use of AI and digital tools".
The Ministry of Defence’s leadership also spoke about reducing the size of its headcount before SR25, doing so relatively early in the tenure of the new government. In November, MoD perm sec David Williams told MPs he expected the MoD to have a headcount at least 10% lower than the then-56,800 number in five years’ time.
The SR25 efficiency document says the MoD will set out workforce changes for its civil service staff in its upcoming Defence Reform and Efficiency Plan, to be published this autumn.
It says this will set out how the restructured department will reduce duplication, reform the department’s civil service workforce to increase productivity, realise greater efficiencies in the department’s estate, and improve procurement processes.
Some of the other standout workforce reduction plans in the document include HM Treasury, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Department of Business and Trade and the Department of Work and Pensions.
The Treasury says it will “need to get smaller” to meet its commitment to a 10% real terms reduction to admin by 2028-29. To help deliver this, the department says it will reduce resource in some areas, “informed by work through the zero-based review including in reviewing the relative roles and responsibilities of HMT versus other departments”.
HMT said it will also introduce a more flexible resourcing model, to move resource more efficiently in line with ministerial priorities.
MHCLG said it has launched a voluntary exit scheme, and will in addition deliver efficiencies through AI, insourcing and reducing contractor usage to "enable a more slimline and agile workforce".
DSIT said it is "streamlining and consolidating" functional activities through technological innovation and process re-engineering, and that this work will “facilitate a reduction in the overall number of senior civil servants and improve management ratios”.
DBT has also said it will seek to have fewer senior officials on its books. The department said it is developing a new operating models for its trade policy and economic security groups, business sectoral support and overseas network, which will lead to it having “fewer directorates, a smaller cadre of senior civil servants and more resources focussed towards priority sectors”.
DWP, meanwhile, said it is streamlining its HR function by eliminating and automating processes to reduce the time spent on administrative tasks.
MoJ's plan, on the other hand, suggest it is still working out the best size and shape for its workforce.
The department said it is “creating a clear picture of how the department operates and is organised, to help ensure it is delivering the right activities, in the right way, with the right workforce”.
It says this "could mean streamlining non-frontline resource where appropriate", and that the department is also considering a more agile workforce, to ensure it is able to swiftly react to emerging priorities.