Slashing Whitehall waste is a pledge that brings to mind Augustine’s prayer for the Lord to make him virtuous – but not yet. It is something repeatedly promised by governments, but rarely delivered. Here we are again, days out from the final Budget before voters go to the polls in a general election, and Jeremy Hunt is announcing a crackdown on bureaucracy in the public sector. He intends to reduce the civil service headcount by 66,000, returning it to pre-pandemic levels.
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Voters are likely to feel cynical. Britain’s public sector is riddled with entitlement and waste at levels described by the Chancellor as ‘immoral’. In January the chief of the National Audit Office warned the government is squandering £10 billion every year. Nearly six million people are now employed in the public sector. The total public sector pay bill was around £233 billion in the 2021/22 financial year, accounting for roughly a fifth of all government spending. Yet productivity in the public sector is still down on 2019. The more resources that are poured into our public sector, the narrower the marginal gains appear to be.
Rarely does the civil service move people on who aren’t up to the job or force them to take real responsibility for any mistakes. Too many of its staff are devoting too much time to issues not directly related to serving the public, and seem to think it perfectly acceptable to do so. An HR culture has taken hold, placing Whitehall at the forefront of some of the nation’s most progressive causes.
To give but a few examples: the most senior mandarin at the Ministry of Justice, who also holds the role of civil service ‘Gender Champion’, has written abuout ending the menopause ‘taboo’ in Whitehall and set up a ‘gender equality leadership group’.