Plan to cut thousands more civil service jobs

A radical blueprint for reforming the state is being drawn up by government officials, including a crackdown on quangos and thousands more civil service job cuts, the Guardian understands.

- Pippa Crerar Jessica Elgot Eleni Courea

Proposals to restructure NHS England, with entire teams cut to save money and avoid duplication, could be replicated across a range of arm's-length bodies that currently spend about £353bn of public money.

Separately, No 10 and the Treasury are understood to be taking a close interest in proposals drawn up by Labour Together, a thinktank with close links to the government, to reshape the state under plans known as Project Chainsaw.

The project's nickname is an explicit reference to Elon Musk's wielding of a chainsaw to symbolise controversial government cuts for Donald Trump's administration. Keir Starmer is now pushing ahead with his own plans to reshape the British state.

The prime minister told his cabinet at their weekly meeting yesterday that they should stop "outsourcing" decisions to regulators and quangos and take more responsibility for their own departments.

Starmer said they "must go further and faster to reform the state", and that he wanted to reverse what he described as a "trend" under previous governments of decisions being made by other bodies.

In a speech tomorrow he will set out plans to reform the state, which are expected to lead thousands more Whitehall job cuts than expected, as well as a reorganisation of more than 300 quangos - including NHS England-which together employ almost 300,000 people.

This could include Homes England, which funds new affordable housing, folding into the Ministry of Housing, giving ministers more direct control over their pledge to build 1.5m new homes this parliament.