More than a thousand jobs are being axed at a key government department in a move officials say will help deliver cost savings of over £100m over the three years.
Approximately 1,200 full-time jobs will be removed in the Cabinet Office through voluntary and mutually agreed exits and through not replacing some staff members who leave, while a further 900 roles will be moved to other departments.
The changes will result in the headcount of the Cabinet Office – the department headed by one of Sir Keir Starmer’s closest allies, Pat McFadden – reducing by a third.
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The Cabinet Office is responsible for supporting the prime minister and ensuring the government runs effectively.
However, there have been concerns about the increase in the size of the department following Brexit and the COVID pandemic.
The cuts form part of a wider government agenda to streamline the civil service and the size of the British state, which the prime minister criticised as “weaker than it has ever been” in a speech where he also announced he was scrapping NHS England, the administrative body that runs the health service.
Last month, Sky News reported that the Cabinet Office was one of a number of government departments to kickstart voluntary exit schemes, alongside the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs and the Foreign Office.
Voluntary exit schemes differ from voluntary redundancy schemes in that they offer departments more flexibility around the terms offered to departing staff.
Others, including the Department for Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, have yet to start schemes, but it is expected they soon will.
Cabinet Office staff were informed by Catherine Little, the permanent secretary, that the changes were being delivered to make the department smaller and more strategic and specialist in its approach.
A Cabinet Office source said: “Leading by example, we are creating a leaner and more focused Cabinet Office that will drive work to reshape the state and deliver our plan for change.
“This government will target resources at frontline services – with more teachers in classrooms, extra hospital appointments and police back on the beat.”
Since launching its voluntary exit scheme in January, the Cabinet Office has accepted 500 applications – 100 more than it was originally targeting.
It comes on top of the 900 people who have already moved out of the department, including the transfer of the government digital service to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
The department hopes that the use of AI and technology and other restructuring reforms will create savings of more than £110m by 2028.
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Lucy Thirlby, the assistant general secretary of the FDA union, which represents civil servants, said the sector was “desperate for reform” but warned that cutting Cabinet Office headcount by a third would impinge on the government’s ability to deliver policies.
“As we are seeing with the reorganisation of NHS England – there is a difference between reforming and cutting,” she told Sky News.
“The Cabinet Office is instrumental in coordinating cross-government work. Cutting a third of the core department will impact the delivery of the government’s own agenda, including their ‘plan for change’.
“Ministers will now need to be honest about what the government will stop doing as a result of these cuts.”
Her concerns were echoed by Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect trade union, who said: “The Cabinet Office has an important role to play operating the machinery of government, driving efficiency and reform, and ensuring other departments are fully aligned with and able to deliver the government’s missions.
“Blunt cuts of this scale will make it harder to play that role and could impact on delivery across government.”
