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The civil service has continued to get bigger and more top-heavy over the past year despite Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s promise to “rewire” the British state.
The overall number of full-time equivalent civil servants grew by more than 4,000 in the year to September, despite promises to cut administration costs and the launch of a redundancy programme. Analysis of civil service data by the Institute for Government finds there are now 520,440 full-time equivalent civil servants, 35 per cent higher than the pre-Brexit low.
Middle management in Whitehall has increased by 132 per cent since 2010 and the senior civil service by 52 per cent, with analysts saying this is partly due to staff being over-promoted in order to get round pay squeezes, a phenomenon dubbed “grade inflation”.
A year ago Starmer said he wanted “the complete rewiring of the British state” and has since stressed that his ministers “don’t want a bigger state” but a “more agile and productive one”.
But Hannah Keenan of the IfG said Starmer’s reforms were so far “not adding up to a state that is being rewired because [ministers] have not yet set out a clear and sustained plan to address the long-standing structural and workforce issues that we have seen get worse this year”.
She added that “if the government isn’t able to set out what [Starmer’s ambitions] mean in practice and where they want to get to, it can’t be a surprise that the state is not getting there”.
In its annual Whitehall Monitor due to be published in January, the IfG estimates that the civil service would need to cut numbers by between 28,500 and 39,500 in order to meet savings targets set out at the spring spending review.
By August, just 8,586 staff had applied to civil service redundancy schemes. The National Audit Office has previously said that the cost of pay-offs for these staff alone would total more than £500mn, far in excess of the £150mn budgeted by the government.
A “mutually agreed exit” scheme relaunched in March to encourage underperforming staff to leave in exchange for a payout had attracted just 30 applications by August. Officials say this was only a test period.
The IfG’s Keenan said looking for administrative budget cuts was a good strategy, rather than setting an arbitrary headcount target, “but the scale of the voluntary exit schemes at the moment aren’t going to deliver all of the reduction the government are looking for”.
Grades 6 and 7, just below the top echelons in the civil service, grew 5 per cent in the past year after more than doubling since 2010. The senior civil service, deputy directors to permanent secretaries, grew 3 per cent in a year. However, the most junior grades fell a further 4 per cent and are 47 per cent below 2010, which partly reflects growing automation.
Keenan said part of the reason grade inflation has continued “is that you promote people more quickly than you would as it’s one of the only ways to pay them more. Pay has risen recently so that is part of the solution but the genie is out of the bottle now”.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has seen the biggest proportional growth in staff over the past year, with an increase of 18 per cent as it takes on responsibility for government IT. HM Revenue & Customs has seen the biggest absolute growth at 2,960 staff as it aims to crack down on tax evasion and improve customer service. The Cabinet Office, which has led the drive for government efficiency, has also grown by 4 per cent over the past year, which officials said was linked to the growth in fast-stream recruitment and the Infected Blood compensation scheme.
The civil service has grown since 2016 as it took on new responsibilities after Brexit and dealt with a pandemic. The fastest growth has been in digital and data experts, up 152 per cent.
Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister, told MPs in December that the centre of government was “too slow” and “process driven and not outcome driven”, saying that reform of the state was “a longer-term project”.
A government spokesperson said: “We are targeting money at frontline services roles, reducing back-office spending by 16 per cent by 2030 and halving the hundreds of millions spent each year on expensive consultants. The latest figures show we are prioritising resources where it matters, with the recruitment of more officers to tackle online fraud and more frontline workers to tackle the backlog in the criminal justice system.”
Data visualisation by Amy Borrett
