Boris Johnson’s plans to reduce the number of civil servants by 91,000, by about 20%, in three years will leave Whitehall unable to cope with the huge additional workload caused by Brexit, independent experts and unions have warned. in government.
They say this reduction would leave the state too small to meet the additional responsibilities assumed by Whitehall officials since the UK left the EU, even in the areas of trade, agriculture, immigration and business regulation.
This weekend, the TUC publishes figures showing that the planned cuts would mean that the proportion of civil servants and members of the UK population would fall below the minimum recorded after the ruthless austerity campaign of former Chancellor George Osborne , when government departments were told to reduce the number to achieve this. savings of up to 40% after the 2010 general election.
TUC figures show that for every 10,000 UK citizens, the number of civil servants fell from 76 in 2010 to 59 in 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum. Last year, to cope with the additional workload of Brexit planning and implementation, the numbers had risen again to 70 per 10,000 UK citizens.
However, if the three-year target of reducing the number by 91,000 were met, the TUC says the number of civil servants would drop to a new minimum of just 56 per 10,000 in 2025, despite additional demands made in the TUC. government by Brexit, the pandemic. and the Ukrainian war.
Ministers and permanent secretaries of all government departments have until the end of June to model scenarios for cuts of 20%, 30% and 40% in the number of civil servants working there. It is very unlikely that the overall reduction of 91,000 will be shared equally, which means that some parts of the government will be asked to reduce by more than 20% and others by less.
The difficulties of managing, let alone making Brexit a success while reducing the size of the state, are underlined by separate figures from the think tank of the Institute for Government (IfG), which says that since 2016, the interior ministry has added 8,400 workers, many of whom are managing new immigration policies and processing EU visas for the first time.
Both Defra (the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and the BEIS (the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) have seen their staffing levels increase by 5,000 since 2016, assuming the regulatory and policy functions that previously held by EU officials. .
Rhys Clyne, a senior researcher at the IfG, told the Observer: “Ministers should explain why they believe that the size of the civil service before Brexit in 2016 is the most efficient size for the civil service almost a decade later, in 2025.
“The UK government now has new responsibilities after Brexit that will have to be resourced and cannot be easily abandoned or developed.”
Steven Littlewood, deputy secretary general of the First Division Association, which represents senior officials, said Whitehall was being cut to the bone.
“Given the government’s new post-Brexit responsibilities in areas such as borders, customs and agriculture, it is impossible to see how it can deliver the services it currently has with the proposed job losses. The government must be honest about what services it would cut if it reduced the number “.
There are warnings that the cuts will worsen delays in passport applications. Photo: Alamy
Cabinet Office Secretary Francis Maude, who oversaw changes in the number of officials under the coalition government led by David Cameron and Obsorne, is being aligned with Johnson to lead a review of how the public service works in the future.
There are also warnings that reducing the number of civil servants will worsen delays in applying for passports, driving licenses and other government services.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Union of Public and Business Services, the largest union of civil servants, said: telephone queues for those with tax inquiries.
“We will fight for all public service jobs. Not just on behalf of our members, but on behalf of every member of the public who trusts in the services they provide.”
Professor Anand Menon, director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, said the problem for Johnson was that Brexit required a bigger state “not only to implement it in the short term, but to carry out all those “These will range from designing and implementing new policies in areas such as agriculture and trade policy, to new regulatory functions and controlling our borders.”