With a view to saving up to £1 billion through creating a leaner and more efficient workforce, a cap on the UK Civil Service headcount was announced in October 2023. The main focus is going to be shifted to the modernisation of the Civil Service, which is expected to result in a higher quality of public services at a lower cost. Additionally, spending on equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) within the Civil Service will be reviewed, to ensure it provides value for money for taxpayers.
What are current civil servant numbers? How are they going to change with the new reform? What is the potential impact of these innovations on public services? In our article, we reveal key figures and the anticipated implications.
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Civil servants play a crucial role in providing essential services that significantly impact and improve people’s lives. They maintain political neutrality and independence from the government while supporting the work of the UK’s central government departments. It’s important to note that civil servants are distinct from public sector workers. Out of the 5.9 million workers in the public sector, only 543,000, or around 9%, are civil servants.
What departments belong to the Civil Service jobs:
The bodies that don’t belong to the Civil Services: Government ministers, the British Armed Forces, the police, local government officers or NDPBs of the Houses of Parliament, the National Health Service (NHS), or the Royal Household staff. Northern Ireland civil servants operate separately as well.
Civil Servants in the UK are co-ordinated and managed by the Prime Minister, who also holds the title of Minister for the Civil Service.
Significant fluctuations in the total number of civil servants started in 2010. The decrease between 2010 and 2016 (when the EU referendum took place) reached 19%, resulting in the lowest workforce number of 384,230 since the Second World War.
After the EU referendum in 2020 and during the pandemic, the growth rate accelerated and at the beginning of 2022, surpassed the 2010 headcount. The numbers never stopped to rise in the most recent quarters. For instance, the policy-based profession reached a notable increase of 94% or 15,565 staff. The Digital Data and Technology profession (DDaT) and the Analytics profession have grown by 107% and 108%, respectively. The operational delivery profession, in turn, has grown by almost 37,000, which is the largest absolute increase since 2016.
Based on the official data provided by the Office for National Statistics, there were 510,665 full-time equivalent civil servants in March 2024. It is 8,220 or 1.6% more if compared to the previous quarter and the highest quarterly growth rate since the pandemic period. It is also 22,175 or 4.5% more civil servants than in 2023.
The growth in civil service headcount has exceeded all expectations—maybe even a bit too much. It did enable an effective response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic; however, further growth would mean efficiency losses that taxpayers would fairly expect. The decision to stop Civil Service expansion was inevitable.
The idea was included in the 2021–24 spending review, aiming to reduce non-frontline civil service roles to 2019–20 levels by 2024-25. Depending on what was meant by “non-frontline” officials, the cut numbers were supposed to vary between 28,500 and 57,000.
In May 2022, the government decided to raise the bar even higher. The aim was to return to 2016 stuffing levels, which would mean removing 91,000 civil service roles over the next three years. Even though they dropped this target in November 2022, they never stopped emphasising the need to reduce staff and achieve efficiency savings.
In October 2023, a new cap was introduced. This time, the government set out to reach the pre-pandemic staff numbers, but the plan has been magically working the opposite way. Instead of a reduction, the latest figures show an increase of 14,550 or 2.9% between September 2023 and March 2024. As for now, reaching the pre-pandemic levels would mean eliminating around 90,000 roles. How exactly are they going to fulfil it? It’s not clear yet. However, this will definitely come at the cost of losing frontline positions and other key skills that the government has previously identified as priorities.
Based on the data from the first quarter of 2024 we can observe pronounced staff cuts at 5 departments: the Ministry of Defence, His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Cabinet Office, the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and His Majesty’s Treasury.
Experts express different opinions regarding what such severe job cuts could potentially lead to. Jeremy Hunt, the current Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has defended plans to trim civil service staff. He believes that by cutting costs in the Civil Service sector, the UK will be able to increase Ukraine aid and defence spending. It’s crucial for restoring peace in Europe.
Meg Hillier, a British Labour and Co-operative politician and a Member of Parliament, believes that laying off Civil Service employees alone won’t solve the problem. Instead, it may well end up costing the government even more in the long run. The example of 2022, when the government went for a 40% cut of their own recruitment service and almost faced service failure, clearly demonstrated it.
It’s important to remember that civil service staff numbers are just one aspect of efficiency. The country needs skilled and committed workers to ensure resilience and productivity boosts.
