Confusion in government over civil service job cuts

There appears to be confusion at the top of government over proposed cuts to the civil service, as a minister has insisted there are no targets for redundancies despite the chancellor saying just one day earlier that 10,000 jobs would be lost.

- MILLIE COOKE

Rachel Reeves has ordered mandarins to slash 15 per cent from departmental administrative budgets by 2029-30 – saving an estimated £2.2bn a year – and pledged that the money will be redirected to “frontline” services.

Over the weekend, when pressed on the number of jobs that could be cut, Ms Reeves told Sky News: “I’m confident that we can reduce civil service numbers by 10,000. And during Covid, there were big increases in the number of people that were working in the civil service. That was the right thing to do to respond to those challenges. But it’s not right that we just keep those numbers there for ever.”

But pressed on the same matter yesterday, transport secretary Heidi Alexander said the government is “not setting a target”. She told Times Radio: “We have made a commitment to reduce the administrative costs of the civil service by 15 per cent over the next five years. We haven’t set any headcount reduction targets on that.”