Unions have slammed plans from Reform UK to cut 68,500 civil service jobs and replace permanent secretaries with outsiders.
Danny Kruger, Reform’s efficiency tsar, yesterday set out further details of Reform's plans to reform the civil service in a speech in which he also said the party would reduce pension entitlements in favour of performance bonuses and set a higher expectation of office-based working.
It follows a speech in October in which Kruger said the party would “dramatically” cut the size of the civil service, bring in political appointments and “restore the civil service to the street called Whitehall”.
In a Q&A session that followed today's speech, Kruger criticised the “permanent secretary class” when asked if the existing civil service leadership would be able to deliver the party’s ideas.
Kruger said there are "very good people" in the civil service and "real institutional knowledge", but added that he anticipates "quite significant change at the top of the civil service".
"It is quite unacceptable that the permanent secretary class that has run our country for so many years, through all these changes of government, can have presided over a collapse in productivity and in the terrible outcomes and the waste that we’ve been seeing," he said.
“So I think there is real change coming at that level and part of that will be bringing in people from outside to take those roles and to give ministers more authority to appoint and dismiss the people that advise them.”
Kruger added that it has been “seriously unacceptable, the way the civil service has been run for decades”.
Responding to the comments, Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, the union for senior civil servants, said: “Sweeping accusations about senior civil servants only undermines Reform UK's attempt to set themselves out as a government in waiting.
“Surrounding ministers only with those who agree with them and whose livelihood is in their hands will not deliver better government. It will lead to yes-men, groupthink and chaos as entire leadership teams change with every ministerial reshuffle.”
Reform eyes big cuts to 'back office functions'
In his speech, Kruger said Reform would reduce the civil service's full-time equivalent headcount by 68,500 roles if it were to get into government, cutting the salary bill by 17% and saving £5.2bn a year.
He said this would consist of cuts to core civil service jobs, not arm's-length bodies – with the latter to be targeted by separate reforms – and would not mean frontline cuts to key public services.
Kruger pledged to protect border control, DWP assessors, Home Office caseworkers, HMRC tax investigators and prison officers. Instead, he said the party would cut back-office management and “the professions that don't do actual delivery”.
He said this would see policy roles and property audit roles cut by 50%, communications roles by 60%, human resources roles by 67%, and other back-office functions including digital, project delivery, finance, legal and commercial professions all reduced by 25%, with a focus on senior grades.
“And there's a whole load of other poorly defined, other unknown roles which we're going to cut as well,” he added.
Fran Heathcote, general secretary of PCS, the civil service’s biggest union, said cutting 68,500 FTE jobs would be “a sure-fire way to reduce efficiency and load the taxpayer with the hidden costs of social failure”.
“The people of the UK, and our members, demand a civil service that gives value for money and gets the job done properly,” she added.
“Reform’s plan in October was to slash 100,000 jobs. Today’s reduced figure is just another wild pledge demonstrating zero understanding of the civil service and how it works."
Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, which represents specialist, digital, technical and scientific civil servants, said this was the third Reform policy pledge on slashing the civil service in as many months “and the numbers change every time”.
“It is clear that they are making it up this policy as they go with no real plan, and no consideration of what the impact will be and what vital services will suffer as a result,” Clancy said.
He added: “You only have to look at Reform’s utter failure to deliver on their spending promises in local government to see how realistic any of their plans are. This is just the latest desperate attempt to generate headlines by treating public servants as a political punchbag, knowing that they are unable to answer back.
“Make no mistake, cuts of the scale being mooted would result in a less effective government that is less able to deliver for the public.”
The FDA took aim at the focus on cutting back-office roles. Penman said it was "unrealistic" to think you can "slash swathes" of corporate functions while protecting frontline services in organisations such as HMRC, Border Force and the prison service.
"Reform UK talk about utilising AI but want massive cuts in key areas of government that drive efficiency and effective use of resources, including digital, engineering, project management and commercial,” he added.
"If government is to become more agile, as they say they want it to be, then these are the skills that need to be invested in, not arbitrarily cut to satisfy a headline in a press release."
On the plans to halve policy roles, Penman said “any serious government would recognise the huge swathe of policy work that resulted from the UK’s exit from the EU” and that the UK government “needs people with the right skills to make it a success for the country”.
However, Penman also said it was “encouraging to see” Reform UK “recognise our members’ frustrations and their desire for change”, referring to Kruger's claims that many civil servants are “miserable” and “overstretched”.
Trading pensions for pay and increasing office attendance
Kruger said the party would also cut back on pensions entitlements and improve pay “to make Whitehall a rewarding place to work, and one that attracts the best talent”.
“Rather than earning a comparatively low salary but earning a massive pension contribution, we will look at reducing pension entitlements in favor of higher wages for high-performing colleagues,” he said.
He said civil servants would also “be expected to work in the office unless there is a very good reason not to do so”.
Kruger also announced the party was launching a survey inviting serving officials to tell them about productivity challenges they are facing.
He added that Reform “respects the constitutional principle of a politically impartial civil service” and is not asking civil servants “to disclose confidential, sensitive or protected information”.
“We want your help so that we can help you to do your job better, because the civil service needs reform,” Kruger said.