Civil service unions have criticised plans from Reform UK to “dramatically” cut the size of the civil service, bring in political appointments and “restore the civil service to the street called Whitehall”.
In a press conference yesterday, the party’s new efficiency tsar Danny Kruger laid out Reform UK’s plans should it win the next general election, which does not need to take place until August 2029.
Kruger, who defected from the Conservative Party last month, said the party will “take back control of the Whitehall machine”.
Unions have slammed the proposals. Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, the trade union for specialist, digital, technical and scientific civil servants, said the plans showed that “far from being a party ready for government, Reform is still in denial about the fundamental reality of governing a modern country”.
The FDA, meanwhile, took aim at the “American-style politicisation” of the civil service, and PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said the headcount reduction plans were “a sure-fire way to reduce efficiency”.
‘Dramatic’ headcount cuts
Kruger said the party will “dramatically” bring civil service headcount down by at least 30% to its levels before the Brexit referendum, similar to promises made by the Conservative Party last month, but added that he is “confident” Reform can go further.
However, he said the party is “deliberately not giving a number” as it wants to “design the function of Whitehall and then its form and then its size”.
A blog published by Kruger following the press conference, setting out more details of the plans, suggested three ways cuts could be achieved: “We can automate a lot of these jobs; we can improve officials’ productivity to reduce headcount; and we can pass responsibility to local councils and civil society.”
The blog also sets out that the party wants to put “a particular emphasis on cutting the head office functions like policy, comms and HR”.
He says Reform could “easily” achieve a 30% cut to headcount through “for instance”:
- A 50% cut in the policy function, saving 17,000 staff
- A 50% cut in HR, saving 6,000 staff
- A 70% cut in comms, saving 3,000 staff
These suggested cuts would amount to a 5% reduction in the civil service headcount.
Kruger said Reform would also return the split of grades to a “pyramid”, reversing the increase in seniority of the civil service over the last 30 years which he said had created "basically a pillar".
PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: "Reducing staffing in the civil service is a sure-fire way to reduce efficiency and load the taxpayer with the hidden costs of social failure. The people of the UK deserve respect, not Reform. They and our members demand a civil service that gives value for money and gets the job done properly. That kind of common sense is obviously lacking from Farage, Kruger and their clickbait cronies."
Bringing politically-appointed civil servants into the mix
Kruger also said Reform would “bring more expertise, advice and executive capability from outside government to serve in Whitehall” and have “people lined up for key appointments…on day one”.
Asked if the party would move to a system where permanent secretaries and directors general are directly appointed by politicians, Kruger said the current civil service “doesn't answer to the elected government” and Reform “insist that people who are advising ministers and who are responsible for execution should be answerable to elected politicians”. He said this means elected politicians would need to have “the power to hire and fire”.
But he said the party has not yet worked out “how we exactly make this work, what will be the appropriate mix of political appointments into the system and career civil servants”.
“We obviously recognise the huge value of a professional civil service in this country,” he added.
FDA general secretary Dave Penman said: “This is confirmation of what we’ve long suspected – if Reform get into government, they’ll adopt an American-style politicisation of the civil service. As we’ve seen with the Trump administration, people are brought in to lead key parts of the state not on ability, but on belief and loyalty.”
Asked at the press conference if Reform wanted to emulate the US president, Donald Trump, Kruger said: "In a nutshell, yes. I think he came into government with exactly the same analysis that we have, which is that in his case the federal government wasn’t under the control of the administration. And he has taken deliberate steps to bring it back under control."
He added that Reform's plans wouldn't "come with a chainsaw or a wrecking ball” and Reform would "stylistically be more British about it".
Kruger also spoke about how he would like Nigel Farage to enter No.10.
“I don't want the cabinet secretary to welcome in him in like the latest short-term tenant of the building, sit him down for a briefing on the House rules and then politely ask if he'd like to change anything about the décor – I want Nigel and his cabinet to sit the civil servants down and tell them the plan”.
‘Making Whitehall Whitehall again’
In his speech, Kruger said the party’s “ambition is to make Whitehall Whitehall again – to restore the civil service to the street called Whitehall”.
He said the following buildings’ leases are due for renewal by the end of the next Parliament and Reform would not renew them:
- Caxton House, Tothill Street (DWP)
- 102 Petty France (MoJ)
- 2 Marsham Street (Home Office, DEFRA, MHCLG)
- Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street (DfE)
- Great Minster House, Horseferry Road (DfT)
- 39 Victoria Street (DHSC)
“In parallel, a process of headcount cuts and relocation beyond London will reduce the demand for office space,” Kruger said in his blog in a section titled "speculative real estate plan for government".
“We will move the remaining ‘Whitehall’ workforce to Whitehall itself: Government Offices Great George St (the Treasury building), the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Ministry of Defence Main Building, 70 Whitehall, and Richmond House," he added.
Kruger said this could save at least £100m per annum.
Three of these buildings have already been earmarked for closure: Caxton House is due to shut next year, with 102 Petty France to follow in 2028, and the Labour government announced in May that 39 Victoria Street would also close.
The Labour government also said it would shut a further eight central London government buildings, which are yet to be named.
The civil service code and the 'woke agenda'
Kruger also said Reform would reform the civil service code “to ensure that officials at the top of the civil service and certainly those at the centre of government are directly answerable to politicians, including for their jobs”.
He said this would include removing the obligation in the code for civil servants to comply with international law and broadening the definition of impartiality to include making “the whole DEI woke agenda that has infected so much of Whitehall...in contravention of the civil service code”.
Kruger said the party would also change the ministerial code so that ministers no longer have to “acknowledge international law in their decision-making”.
Job centres and prison management 'could be privatised'
Beyond savings from cutting headcount, Kruger was asked what savings Reform would seek from stopping core functions.
He said some functions "could be given up altogether" and that there are parts of the current public sector activity that "could be better done and more efficiently done outside".
"Some prison management is done very well outside the public sector," he said. "Employment support intuitively would be better done by businesses than by job centres."
‘Civil servants are convenient scapegoats’
Prospect's Mike Clancy described Reform's announcements as “the latest political party to use hardworking civil servants as convenient scapegoats, blaming them for the country’s problems knowing that they are unable to respond".
“The truth is that, as they are finding out in local government, it is easy to promise big cost savings but the reality is that cutting public servants means damaging the delivery of the services the public rely on,” he said.
Clancy added: “Danny Kruger also claims that this is about saving money at the same time as he wants to bring more expensive private sector expertise into government – the current experience is that the civil service is losing expertise to the private sector because of a lack of competitiveness on pay, these proposals simply do not engage with the reality.
“The civil service is already overstretched, partly because of the impact of the bad Brexit deal that Reform championed. Civil servants will serve whichever party is in government but these proposals show that, far from being a party ready for government, Reform is still in denial about the fundamental reality of governing a modern country.”