No 'chainsaw reforms' for civil service, says minister

Cabinet minister Pat McFadden has insisted that he will "not take a chainsaw to the civil service" as fears grow of an Elon Musk-style cost-cutting exercise.

- DAVID MADDOX

The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who runs the Cabinet Office engine room of Whitehall, denied he had set targets for job cuts as he announced a major overhaul of the civil service.

Mr McFadden – sometimes wryly referred to as Sir Keir Starmer’s unofficial deputy prime minister – made his remarks yesterday after unveiling a series of hard-hitting reforms to Whitehall.

He also made it clear that the government plans significant cuts to benefits, targeting those on long-term disability payments. This is despite revelations that ill and disabled people are already waiting too long for payments.

But as well as cutting jobs deemed unnecessary, pay will be linked to performance as chancellor Rachel Reeves also exerts pressure to find savings to help her cover an increase in defence spending from 2.3 per cent to 2.5 per cent of GDP.

The proposals have echoes of Mr Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency in the US, which has made massive cuts to foreign aid with plans for sweeping reforms in the federal system.

The tech tycoon recently demonstrated his approach to slashing the cost of government by appearing on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington DC, brandishing a jewel-encrusted chainsaw gifted to him by Javier Gerardo Milei, the president of Argentina.