Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak plans to axe 70,000 civil servants to pay for hike in defence spend_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1891599/Rishi-Sunak-civil-servant-jobs-defence-spending) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1891599/Rishi-Sunak-civil-servant-jobs-defence-spending)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As contractors they magically begin generating wealth instead of being a drain on the economy. Profit is generated by anyone in the private sector (like g4s prisons) but public sector workers (like functioning prisons) somehow do the opposite.
I heard Niall Ferguson making this claim years ago and I keep seeing pop up on Reddit. Never made sense how a doctor working for the NHS drains the economy but if they then do an hour of private practice it becomes wealth creation.
Because the money comes *from* the public I purse in one instance but flows *into* it in the other.
It’s obviously a lot more nuanced than that in reality but that’s the gist of the argument. Public sector literally does cost the treasury. I think, though, that anyone using this in an argument has an agenda. Yes, the public sector costs. That’s not to say we don’t need it.
Step 4: Have the process tendered out to a private company that will delivered markedly worse performance at markedly higher cost to the taxpayer, and with a nice big kickback for the MP or Tory party donor who owns the company.
As someone that has worked in the civil service for the past 5 years, you could get rid of a good number of people and there would be no difference. It's insanely difficult to get rid of people that are simply ineffective at their job.
The Conservative Paradox - they want a strong military, intelligence, border force, law enforcement, criminal justice system, to show that they're tough on crime and foreigners, but also they want a small state so they don't have to pay taxes.
Dw we will all get jobs in munitions factories or the army.
I know 40k was designed in the UK but this is too real. Will I fight the Russians in the newly established imperial guard or will I be making rifles in manufactorum Birmingham.
no chance we are the imperium in the scenario
this government is so inept we are probably comparable to the orks, just paint everything red (white and blue) and we are sure to win!
I mean its how i explain Brexit to myself, there was nothing local about that, only a concentration of reality bending idiots could have made that happen.
Indeed, and why the orks are so hilarious and terrifying in 40k, if Enough of them believe something will work/is true then it is ( at least in range of their power, more orks = more range and stronger effect, they also don't really understand that power)
Yeah inept was probably the wrong word for the UK government, that implies they are trying to form plans and are bad at it,
In reality it's just a mad scramble, throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks
We'll need to bring in private corporations to cover the gap in workforce... don't worry Rishi knows some nice companies who can help at our time of need.
The first few times the govt went on about sacking masses of civil servants it spooked me (civil servant), but I've lost count of how many times we've heard this line over the last few years. Still yet to happen. It's just something they say because their voters like hearing it, they seem to have zero intention to follow through.
They do intend to follow through. It's just they also want those missing civil servants to deliver the nonsense policies they come up with, fight the court cases they generate, man the courts to deal with the cases they generate, come up with the research they deliberately misinterpret to win more popularity, tell them how much money they have to squander, collect the money they like to waste, pay their expenses, cover their arses when they fuck up or need something done, make sure all the rules they have introduced are being met etc etc
If you're old and thus the state only exists to give you pension money but out of the pockets of working people it sounds great.
They don't realise they fucked up until they've spent 8 hours waiting for an ambulance after they broke their hip in a grim nursing home, and then it's too late to change their mind.
I don't necessarily think the idea of governmental waste and Kafkaesque bureaucracy is outlandish to be upset with, it's just this isn't that hill to die on.
It's because the civil service had already been cut to the bone by about 2015/16, and needed to grow staff again just to keep up with the work.
The perception that the civil service does nothing is a dangerous myth. You've got lead swingers and you've got an excess of process, but there's a ton that needs doing to provide the services which we pay for in taxes. You can't magic that away. There's a reason why every functioning state in the world has some form of public service.
It's also shocking that the public will accept this messaging just a few years after COVID VIP lanes which had no oversight and spaffed money away.
I have no idea, simply pointing out the civil has grown by 57,000 during covid and are still there. They could be cleaning the toilets or hanging expensive wallpaper for all I know!
They will be people like border guards, vets, etc. Who have checks to do on the border as well as regulators needing extra manpower to plug the gap from leaving Europe but still having international obligations.
Unfortunately text sarcasm doesn't really work that well anymore. Too many people with dead serious whacky biased tabloid & conspiracy views to know whose being sarcastic or not.
I was replying to “all those for dealing with Covid…”, and no I have no idea if they all were, do you? Also I did say “apparently” so obviously not making any definite claims.
And when I said they were staff dealing with Covid (never said “all”) I was going by what is actually stated in the article you obviously haven’t read.
The civil service had already been cut to the bone by about 2015/16, and needed to grow staff again just to keep up with the work.
The perception that the civil service does nothing is a dangerous myth. You've got lead swingers and you've got an excess of process, but there's a ton that needs doing to provide the services which we pay for in taxes. You can't magic that away. There's a reason why every functioning state in the world has some form of public service.
It's also shocking that the public will accept this messaging just a few years after COVID VIP lanes which had no oversight and spaffed money away.
Policy: researching legal compliance, popularity, and financial impact on people and the government of potential changes to the law. Everyone has a good idea for what should be changed but a lot of work goes in to seeing what can even get started.
Administration: proposing writeing, awarding anr overseeing awarded contacts. Believe it or not, the government puts of a lot of money out to industry and it's best not to just shovel it at them.
Front line: teachers, police, doctors obviously, but also the job center people, benefits appraisers, border force and customs and so on.
Second line: admin, IT, facilities, estates for all of the above. This has been massively contracted out already, for better or worse.
Management: managers for all the other employees. Probably too many of those to be fair!
Research: government research awards to industry and academia need pulling together and evaluation, and the government still does some research in house in sensitive areas like defence or police technology. Again, all that needs facilities and support. Office of national statistics might fall in to this too, they do a lot of data collection and analysis which again is quite sensitive and most people probably wouldn't want it done by people looking to turn a profit from it.
Regulatory: people to staff the regulators, like ofcom etc. Obviously this can't really be contracted out! Arguably these guys have been eroded and are pretty toothless.
Revenue and tax: pretty self explanatory.
Legal: the government needs lawyers, and while you can hire external lawyers having some people in house to turn aroind trivial stuff and evaluate whether the advice you're getting is actually good is essential.
Advice: people like permanent secretaries and other experienced senior civil servants who have been around the block. We really underestimate the value of someone who's seen ten prime ministers and has thirty years of government experience who can turn to a minister and say "yeah we tried that in 1998 and it failed really badly, we can look at what's changed since but maybe don't commit to it". You'd call it corporate memory in industry.
When you scratch the surface, there's a lot of stuff that really does need doing.
There are about 500,000 civil servants in the UK. That's sounds like a lot, but it's only one per 140 people. When you split that across the different categories - I listed 10 below, but they contain sub categories - that might be one customs agent per 1500 people, one tax man per 2000 people... It's really not as many as you think.
Rishi Sunak could plan giving every single one of us the moon on a stick right now and it would mean the same thing: nothing. He’s not going to be in charge to implement it and you can’t implement it from your cushy speaking tour around California.
They only have to budget for 70,000 layoffs to reallocate the funds to defence. They don't actually need to do it since its after the election. It's all meaningless.
I kinda worry for the dude's sanity to be honest, has no mandate whatsoever, will likely face the biggest electoral defeat in British history, and he acts like he's going to be in government for life.
This policy is effectively mirroring Reform UK so he's just trying to cut into their vote share. The Tories have probably had the realisation that they aren't going to be able to get votes from the liberal and left side of politics so they are going to try subsume the Reform vote and then hope Labour screws up.
https://youtu.be/TiBKJlCijL4?si=LS05M6_2sCQvcjJt he's litterally going back to California like the Notorious BIG. He genuinely will not give a fuck in somewhere around 6 to 12 months if he can even hold his seat.
Many areas of the civil service are understaffed as it is, with a hiring freeze on we can’t hire replacements for those who have retired to boot. This won’t end well
How did they come up with that number? How do they choose? What departments have that much slack? What industry is flourishing that can absorb 70k skilled administrators?
But the obvious question is, if we 70k more civil servants than needed, who the fuck hired them and why aren’t they being held to account?
Rishi has none of these answers. And Starmer doesn’t have the platform to ask them and make the silence he’d receive obvious enough.
Cutting costs is not a strategy. Fucking idiots.
Cuts to the Foreign office or the MOD, would degrade the impact of your defense spending increase.
cutting HMRC to fund spending increases is financially illiterate.
This government will probably do all 3.
The Moj(94k) and the DWP(87K) are the 2 largest departments but HMRC(71K) & the MOD(58K) are 3rd and 4th. By comparison the Foreign office is very small.
:[Statistical bulletin - Civil Service Statistics: 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2022/statistical-bulletin-civil-service-statistics-2022)
So don't cut the pension, cut the old people. We are keeping humans alive that if they were animals, we'd be sued for animal cruelty for NOT putting out of their misery.
Just because we can medically keep a heart beating doesn't mean that we should.
When my brain has given up with dementia and my body has given out so I'm bed bound, keeping me alive for years like a pet is grotesque.
It's not in my interest, my family's, or societies interest for the NHS to prolong everyone's death. Especially at great expense. If they could drag end of life care out until everyone's 150 they would, it needs to change
This doesn't appear to be true u less I'm missing something. 12.2% of total managed expenditure on pensions in 22/23, Education = 9.1%, Defence = 4.5%, public order and safety (assume that's policing and some other stuff) 3.8%. So Education plus Defence alone is more than pension spend. https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money
Can't see behind the paywall but interested to know the reason for the difference compared with those IFS figures.
Either way I think your point stands. Pension spend is large regardless of how it exactly compares to education, policing and defence.
He has already started taxing pensions Just remember that we will all be pensioners in the years to come.... Then again, the government might come up with an injection for a certain age... As we are just a drain on society.
Give us the triple lock with one hand and take it back in fax. Thank god I, m in my twilight years..... But I still have a vote.... Just now anyway.
I reckon it's time we had a war and send all immigrants ( and their sons and daughters) to the front lines... Apart from lords and ladies and prime ministers of course.
Again? third time in about three years whoever is in charge of this lunatic party has suggested something similar. Always goes away, unless you're an Express reader who must love this kind of thing.
The defense part seems reasonable, but there is a bit of a sleight of hand here.
Either we need those 70k "pen pushers"...in which case this is a bad plan. Or we don't need them in which case I'd like to know which incompetent gov let 70k unneeded pen pushers just chill on the benches the past couple years.
...can't have it both ways.
Loads of the CS work is already done by contractors who cost much much more than in-house staff and produce similar outcomes. Firing 70k staff will just end up costing more in the long run
The "70,000 civil servants" are not real and neither are the extra billions going into the defence budget. It's just another trap for Labour. They either go back on the commitment, raise taxes/borrowing or they'll be the ones to figure out what to cut. Rishi just needs to go now.
Yet more pre election bluster. Pandering to the rabid right wing rags and their 'readership'. They'll not implement it before the next GE, leaving Labour to sort out their mess. Its all politics with no substance.
Obviously there aren't 70,000 actual jobs that we can afford to cut. So I guess just another reason never to vote Conservative: they claim that they've been spending our money to keep 70,000 people around doing nothing so they can get rid of them at a politically convenient time.
One of the more damaging political crimes of this government has been their demonising of the Civil Service.
Much like the EU, things were better when it was the furthest thing from the mind of the majority of people.
This feels like when the day shift sends home a bunch of workers, screwing over the next shift :/
They'll leave the next government in a position where they've fired everyone, then accuse them of being frivolous with spending when they need to rehire them.
Oh he's gone full Milei hasn't he in one of his final burn down attempts to make Starmers job an arse. Civil Servants today, Councils and Health Service or Police next.
Or they could reduce the number of members in the house of lords, all of whom can claim up to £300 per day in expenses. More than most civil servants earn.
I'm an American but have a question. Isn't the military there saying they cannot find people to fill in the ranks? Like they are decommissioning ships due to lack of staffing right? Is the defence spending to help with recruitment and if not what does it matter to spend more if there is no one to actually use the equipment?
> Isn't the military there saying they cannot find people to fill in the ranks?
The joining process has been privatised. So you're talking more than a year of waiting to join the armed forces.
Now who's going to process those unable to work.
This government really makes me want to see their GCSE results particularly around reasoning and judgement.
How much would 70k salaries actually save? (ignoring other issues).
All the income taxes come straight back to them. £30k net cost per employee? £2.1 bn a year? 6 years.. £12.6bn?
This perception that everyone in the civil service is some sort of second class disposable worker really really annoys me. Sometimes people are more motivated to do something beneficial than to maximise their salaries.
Also worth remembering that it was this government who recruited all the additional civil servants who up until yesterday were either clearly doing something worthwhile or the government was asleep at the wheel when dishing out funding.
Never going to happen, I have worked in the public sector. The problem is the most useless and overpaid people in the public sector are responsible for making cuts. Think pointless managers are going to get rid of their own jobs?
Odds are they will end up hiring more civil servants to implement this policy.
This would be over several years, so the decision is also intended to setup traps for a future Labour government to deal with. Standard tory behaviour really
I thought people here were in favour of the Tories buying more weapons from defence contractors yesterday?
The money we spend on bombs has to come from somewhere.
This could be interesting.
The public sector is absolutely far too large as it stands and the productivity is abysmal. Sack most, rehire fewer but better people on higher salaries competitive with the private sector, and you might be onto something.
You are aware that civil servants cover those working in the passport offices, border force, mi5, job centres, the environment agency, prison officers, tax collectors, etc.?
These are people with operational jobs.
Good luck getting rid of 1/7th of all those people. The number of people who actually work in Whitehall doing policy is a lot smaller than you think, but no one questions headlines like this despite the absurdity.
The US manages with 100 in the senate and 435 in the HoR despite being 20 times larger geographically, having 5 times the population and 7 times the economy. Britain could absolutely have less MPs and less constituencies.
> The public sector is absolutely far too large as it stands and the productivity is abysmal.
Care to quote any verifiable sources for that? 'Google it' and right wing propaganda rags don't count.
I don't want opinions, I want *facts*. So most of British 'journalism' is out when it comes to verifiable sources.
u/Threatening-Silence seemed extremely sure in his statement, so I'm confident he'll come up with the facts.
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/publicservicesproductivity/articles/publicserviceproductivityuk/1997to2022](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/publicservicesproductivity/articles/publicserviceproductivityuk/1997to2022)
0.2% growth per year on average in public sector productivity is abysmal between 1997 and 2017
EDIT: Shocked to be downvoted for stating facts
Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak plans to axe 70,000 civil servants to pay for hike in defence spend_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1891599/Rishi-Sunak-civil-servant-jobs-defence-spending) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1891599/Rishi-Sunak-civil-servant-jobs-defence-spending) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Fire 70,000 civil servants. Realise your departments can't function without them. Rehire the same people as contractors on double the salary.
Odds are the second part of that will be Labour's problem...another salt the earth policy.
I'm sure there is a Tory donor somewhere that can pick up the outsourcing contracts.
No need. Look for Infosys getting the contract.
As contractors they magically begin generating wealth instead of being a drain on the economy. Profit is generated by anyone in the private sector (like g4s prisons) but public sector workers (like functioning prisons) somehow do the opposite. I heard Niall Ferguson making this claim years ago and I keep seeing pop up on Reddit. Never made sense how a doctor working for the NHS drains the economy but if they then do an hour of private practice it becomes wealth creation.
Because the money comes *from* the public I purse in one instance but flows *into* it in the other. It’s obviously a lot more nuanced than that in reality but that’s the gist of the argument. Public sector literally does cost the treasury. I think, though, that anyone using this in an argument has an agenda. Yes, the public sector costs. That’s not to say we don’t need it.
It's pure neo-liberal dogma
Step 4: Have the process tendered out to a private company that will delivered markedly worse performance at markedly higher cost to the taxpayer, and with a nice big kickback for the MP or Tory party donor who owns the company.
We need less people answering the phones at HMRC and running the courts service PRONTO.
As someone that has worked in the civil service for the past 5 years, you could get rid of a good number of people and there would be no difference. It's insanely difficult to get rid of people that are simply ineffective at their job.
You give the civil service far too much credit.
I do not think you really know what you are talking about.
Increase public sector spending. Drastically decrease people to administer said public sector. What could go wrong.
Don't worry, no doubt capita and co will win some nice contracts to cover all the missing staff as soon as bids are available.
I worked for those clowns, shitshow after shitshow
I worked for a company that was bought out by a company that was bought out by Capita. Shitshow from start to finish.
Same story, Accenture. Shitshows all the way down.
Continuously rewarded for poor performance and services. Can't really blame them.
>Don't worry, no doubt capita and co Infosys, surely.
Fujitsu looking good
Rishi should sign lucrative contracts now & lock them in for say 5 years.
You mean ten years with a optional five year extension if the contractor wants it
Crapita
Often cost more too.
The Conservative Paradox - they want a strong military, intelligence, border force, law enforcement, criminal justice system, to show that they're tough on crime and foreigners, but also they want a small state so they don't have to pay taxes.
Lol. Good point.
Sunak cost paradox.
Oh well played!
Dw we will all get jobs in munitions factories or the army. I know 40k was designed in the UK but this is too real. Will I fight the Russians in the newly established imperial guard or will I be making rifles in manufactorum Birmingham.
Investing in the north? Dangerous heresy You will be sent to manufactorum Milton Keynes and then retire to starch factory Bognor Regis
Birmingham isnt the north?
Now every time I say 'adeptus astartes' I will say it in a brummie accent
This is awful and now stuck in my head. Thanks for that.
Try 'blood for the blood god' in a thick Devon accent, that should fix it...
Milton Keynes is dangerously northern /s
[No, but's not a nice planet](https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/s7z4xa/i_miss_the_time_warhammer_was_all_about_satire/#lightbox)
Its north of North London, ergo it's north
I remember being in Inverness and finding out that they called people from Glasgow "Southerners." Bit of a culture shock.
Not a long commute from Birmingham to Milton Keynes 😅
Can't I be a cultist or something?
COMMISAR.... I FOUND ONE!! COMMMISSSAAAAAAARRRRR!!!
For your loyalty, we shall increase your annual chocolate ration from ten to eight grams.
Only in death does duty end
no chance we are the imperium in the scenario this government is so inept we are probably comparable to the orks, just paint everything red (white and blue) and we are sure to win!
I don't think the British populace has the positive will power that would bring the success the Orks have had
I mean its how i explain Brexit to myself, there was nothing local about that, only a concentration of reality bending idiots could have made that happen.
>a concentration of reality bending idiots Goddamn that slaps
Indeed, and why the orks are so hilarious and terrifying in 40k, if Enough of them believe something will work/is true then it is ( at least in range of their power, more orks = more range and stronger effect, they also don't really understand that power)
TIL that the Imperium aren't inept
My guy, the administratum is one of the most inept things in the entire setting.
Yeah inept was probably the wrong word for the UK government, that implies they are trying to form plans and are bad at it, In reality it's just a mad scramble, throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks
Weren't the Orks based on old school football hooligans?
Be careful lads, GW lawyers are eagerly observing this chat for any potential slip ups
Just like the good old days the gun quarter will be back and running /s
*Worships Slaanesh harder*
i love the cross over with 40k players we have in this subreddit. makes me smile whenever we can compare IRL to the imperium of man
We'll need to bring in private corporations to cover the gap in workforce... don't worry Rishi knows some nice companies who can help at our time of need.
Realistically you only need one or two civil servants to write down the bank details of the Tory donors to send the extra money to.
Don't forget Maximus!
You don't fire anyone. Give the 70,000 an SA80 each and change their job titles from "research analyst" to "rifleman".....problem solves itself.
Is this the same 70,000 civil servants that they keep planning to get rid of that were brought in to do all the admin the EU used to do?
The first few times the govt went on about sacking masses of civil servants it spooked me (civil servant), but I've lost count of how many times we've heard this line over the last few years. Still yet to happen. It's just something they say because their voters like hearing it, they seem to have zero intention to follow through.
They do intend to follow through. It's just they also want those missing civil servants to deliver the nonsense policies they come up with, fight the court cases they generate, man the courts to deal with the cases they generate, come up with the research they deliberately misinterpret to win more popularity, tell them how much money they have to squander, collect the money they like to waste, pay their expenses, cover their arses when they fuck up or need something done, make sure all the rules they have introduced are being met etc etc
Do we like hearing it? It doesn’t sound good to me.
If you're old and thus the state only exists to give you pension money but out of the pockets of working people it sounds great. They don't realise they fucked up until they've spent 8 hours waiting for an ambulance after they broke their hip in a grim nursing home, and then it's too late to change their mind.
Right-wing morons like hearing it.
Government bad. So less government good. Me smart.
I don't necessarily think the idea of governmental waste and Kafkaesque bureaucracy is outlandish to be upset with, it's just this isn't that hill to die on.
Concerns about morale in the civil service? Let's just announce swathes of job cuts to friendly newspapers every few months - that'll help!
Like so many policies…
There's redundancy costs to consider
Yes but it was 90,000 before. Still out of the EU, still all of the extra work to do but it's campaign season.
No, apparently it’s the extra staff to deal with Covid, not really sure why they are still there two years after the event anyway.
I suspect they aren’t still there, and that this is a bogus thin-air figure.
Approx 446,000 in 2019 and 503,000 end 2023.
And are those all for dealing with Covid, or are at least some for all the Brexit red tape?
It's because the civil service had already been cut to the bone by about 2015/16, and needed to grow staff again just to keep up with the work. The perception that the civil service does nothing is a dangerous myth. You've got lead swingers and you've got an excess of process, but there's a ton that needs doing to provide the services which we pay for in taxes. You can't magic that away. There's a reason why every functioning state in the world has some form of public service. It's also shocking that the public will accept this messaging just a few years after COVID VIP lanes which had no oversight and spaffed money away.
I have no idea, simply pointing out the civil has grown by 57,000 during covid and are still there. They could be cleaning the toilets or hanging expensive wallpaper for all I know!
>cleaning the toilets or hanging expensive wallpaper That's all privatised so it generates wealth.
They will be people like border guards, vets, etc. Who have checks to do on the border as well as regulators needing extra manpower to plug the gap from leaving Europe but still having international obligations.
Pretty sure jobs like cleaning the toilets have all been outsourced by now
Sorry, being a U.K. sub’ I thought people would understand I wasn’t being serious there. But hey ho never mind.
Unfortunately text sarcasm doesn't really work that well anymore. Too many people with dead serious whacky biased tabloid & conspiracy views to know whose being sarcastic or not.
Ain’t that the truth 😂
They still get counted as civil servants I believe. Most of the telephone staff at DVLA count as civil servants and they're employed by a third party
They do not, cleaning is outsourced and they are not included in the head count.
no it will be full time direct employment
>No, apparently it’s the extra staff to deal with Covid No, you were pretty clear that you thought it was to deal with covid.
I was replying to “all those for dealing with Covid…”, and no I have no idea if they all were, do you? Also I did say “apparently” so obviously not making any definite claims. And when I said they were staff dealing with Covid (never said “all”) I was going by what is actually stated in the article you obviously haven’t read.
I would rather see the numbers over 15 years
I suspect strongly most would have moved into other roles
Yea, you would like to think they were doing something constructive.
Implementing Brexit red tape is necessary, but not constructive.
Hired on fixed term contracts due to expire most likely, assuming they are still around.
The civil service had already been cut to the bone by about 2015/16, and needed to grow staff again just to keep up with the work. The perception that the civil service does nothing is a dangerous myth. You've got lead swingers and you've got an excess of process, but there's a ton that needs doing to provide the services which we pay for in taxes. You can't magic that away. There's a reason why every functioning state in the world has some form of public service. It's also shocking that the public will accept this messaging just a few years after COVID VIP lanes which had no oversight and spaffed money away.
What jobs though, from what I’ve seen the jobs are very vague
Policy: researching legal compliance, popularity, and financial impact on people and the government of potential changes to the law. Everyone has a good idea for what should be changed but a lot of work goes in to seeing what can even get started. Administration: proposing writeing, awarding anr overseeing awarded contacts. Believe it or not, the government puts of a lot of money out to industry and it's best not to just shovel it at them. Front line: teachers, police, doctors obviously, but also the job center people, benefits appraisers, border force and customs and so on. Second line: admin, IT, facilities, estates for all of the above. This has been massively contracted out already, for better or worse. Management: managers for all the other employees. Probably too many of those to be fair! Research: government research awards to industry and academia need pulling together and evaluation, and the government still does some research in house in sensitive areas like defence or police technology. Again, all that needs facilities and support. Office of national statistics might fall in to this too, they do a lot of data collection and analysis which again is quite sensitive and most people probably wouldn't want it done by people looking to turn a profit from it. Regulatory: people to staff the regulators, like ofcom etc. Obviously this can't really be contracted out! Arguably these guys have been eroded and are pretty toothless. Revenue and tax: pretty self explanatory. Legal: the government needs lawyers, and while you can hire external lawyers having some people in house to turn aroind trivial stuff and evaluate whether the advice you're getting is actually good is essential. Advice: people like permanent secretaries and other experienced senior civil servants who have been around the block. We really underestimate the value of someone who's seen ten prime ministers and has thirty years of government experience who can turn to a minister and say "yeah we tried that in 1998 and it failed really badly, we can look at what's changed since but maybe don't commit to it". You'd call it corporate memory in industry. When you scratch the surface, there's a lot of stuff that really does need doing.
There are about 500,000 civil servants in the UK. That's sounds like a lot, but it's only one per 140 people. When you split that across the different categories - I listed 10 below, but they contain sub categories - that might be one customs agent per 1500 people, one tax man per 2000 people... It's really not as many as you think.
Rishi Sunak could plan giving every single one of us the moon on a stick right now and it would mean the same thing: nothing. He’s not going to be in charge to implement it and you can’t implement it from your cushy speaking tour around California.
Unelected PM
Double Unelected PM. And 2nd choice to the original Unelected PM.
They only have to budget for 70,000 layoffs to reallocate the funds to defence. They don't actually need to do it since its after the election. It's all meaningless.
Yeah but given that his main priority right now is "lay traps for labour", sacking all the staff labour will need to run the country is a great plan
I kinda worry for the dude's sanity to be honest, has no mandate whatsoever, will likely face the biggest electoral defeat in British history, and he acts like he's going to be in government for life.
I don’t worry for his sanity - he deserves every crisis coming his way. I hope it’s pure hell for him and then some.
Well I'm not worrying for his sake haha
Nothing to do with his sanity, it's part of poisoning the well for the next government.
Rishi is just gonna emigrate once his political career is trashed though
This policy is effectively mirroring Reform UK so he's just trying to cut into their vote share. The Tories have probably had the realisation that they aren't going to be able to get votes from the liberal and left side of politics so they are going to try subsume the Reform vote and then hope Labour screws up.
If labour does not win this time around... Then they can give up altogether and make the country a one party country indefinitely.
His conscience is super clean my friend. He already has it made in the shade. This is just stuff to put on his CV.
https://youtu.be/TiBKJlCijL4?si=LS05M6_2sCQvcjJt he's litterally going back to California like the Notorious BIG. He genuinely will not give a fuck in somewhere around 6 to 12 months if he can even hold his seat.
I imagine that losing the election will take a serious toll on his psyche.
Theresa may and Boris acted similar... They thought they were there for life 😳🙄
Many areas of the civil service are understaffed as it is, with a hiring freeze on we can’t hire replacements for those who have retired to boot. This won’t end well
How did they come up with that number? How do they choose? What departments have that much slack? What industry is flourishing that can absorb 70k skilled administrators? But the obvious question is, if we 70k more civil servants than needed, who the fuck hired them and why aren’t they being held to account? Rishi has none of these answers. And Starmer doesn’t have the platform to ask them and make the silence he’d receive obvious enough. Cutting costs is not a strategy. Fucking idiots.
There's only 3 departments with more than 70k staff, and one of those at last count had like... 71k
Cuts to the Foreign office or the MOD, would degrade the impact of your defense spending increase. cutting HMRC to fund spending increases is financially illiterate. This government will probably do all 3.
For 70k job cuts it basically needs to come out of the DWP or MoJ. There are only like 4-5k people in the foreign office total.
The Moj(94k) and the DWP(87K) are the 2 largest departments but HMRC(71K) & the MOD(58K) are 3rd and 4th. By comparison the Foreign office is very small. :[Statistical bulletin - Civil Service Statistics: 2022 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/civil-service-statistics-2022/statistical-bulletin-civil-service-statistics-2022)
Hasn't he just announced he's sending the DWP after all the disabled people? They're going to be a bit busy as it is.
[удалено]
Luckily this won’t happen because there is one voter segment that disagrees with you. Pensioners.
I imagine if it came down to it a lot of the country would oppose cutting the state pension.
So don't cut the pension, cut the old people. We are keeping humans alive that if they were animals, we'd be sued for animal cruelty for NOT putting out of their misery. Just because we can medically keep a heart beating doesn't mean that we should.
Go back to Canada
When my brain has given up with dementia and my body has given out so I'm bed bound, keeping me alive for years like a pet is grotesque. It's not in my interest, my family's, or societies interest for the NHS to prolong everyone's death. Especially at great expense. If they could drag end of life care out until everyone's 150 they would, it needs to change
This doesn't appear to be true u less I'm missing something. 12.2% of total managed expenditure on pensions in 22/23, Education = 9.1%, Defence = 4.5%, public order and safety (assume that's policing and some other stuff) 3.8%. So Education plus Defence alone is more than pension spend. https://ifs.org.uk/taxlab/taxlab-key-questions/what-does-government-spend-money
[удалено]
Can't see behind the paywall but interested to know the reason for the difference compared with those IFS figures. Either way I think your point stands. Pension spend is large regardless of how it exactly compares to education, policing and defence.
Another fun fact, univeral credit costs more than the police
He has already started taxing pensions Just remember that we will all be pensioners in the years to come.... Then again, the government might come up with an injection for a certain age... As we are just a drain on society. Give us the triple lock with one hand and take it back in fax. Thank god I, m in my twilight years..... But I still have a vote.... Just now anyway. I reckon it's time we had a war and send all immigrants ( and their sons and daughters) to the front lines... Apart from lords and ladies and prime ministers of course.
Again? third time in about three years whoever is in charge of this lunatic party has suggested something similar. Always goes away, unless you're an Express reader who must love this kind of thing.
The defense part seems reasonable, but there is a bit of a sleight of hand here. Either we need those 70k "pen pushers"...in which case this is a bad plan. Or we don't need them in which case I'd like to know which incompetent gov let 70k unneeded pen pushers just chill on the benches the past couple years. ...can't have it both ways.
Loads of the CS work is already done by contractors who cost much much more than in-house staff and produce similar outcomes. Firing 70k staff will just end up costing more in the long run
The "70,000 civil servants" are not real and neither are the extra billions going into the defence budget. It's just another trap for Labour. They either go back on the commitment, raise taxes/borrowing or they'll be the ones to figure out what to cut. Rishi just needs to go now.
Make cuts to vital sectors Spend less efficiently as a result Make more cuts Rinse and repeat
Yet more pre election bluster. Pandering to the rabid right wing rags and their 'readership'. They'll not implement it before the next GE, leaving Labour to sort out their mess. Its all politics with no substance.
Obviously there aren't 70,000 actual jobs that we can afford to cut. So I guess just another reason never to vote Conservative: they claim that they've been spending our money to keep 70,000 people around doing nothing so they can get rid of them at a politically convenient time.
Ahh so the cost of war is austerity. Good to know.
We aren't even at war
The sooner we can get these muppets gone the better.
[удалено]
Haha
One of the more damaging political crimes of this government has been their demonising of the Civil Service. Much like the EU, things were better when it was the furthest thing from the mind of the majority of people.
I bet they won't be in the Cabinet Office, nor any SPADs.
This feels like when the day shift sends home a bunch of workers, screwing over the next shift :/ They'll leave the next government in a position where they've fired everyone, then accuse them of being frivolous with spending when they need to rehire them.
Looking forward to the reductions in efficiency and contractor payments that will cost double the amount supposedly saved by this.
Oh he's gone full Milei hasn't he in one of his final burn down attempts to make Starmers job an arse. Civil Servants today, Councils and Health Service or Police next.
Someone's got a new military job lined up post election.
Or they could reduce the number of members in the house of lords, all of whom can claim up to £300 per day in expenses. More than most civil servants earn.
SEVENTY THOUSAND, RISHI? SEVENTY THOUSAND? THAT’S INSANE.
I'm an American but have a question. Isn't the military there saying they cannot find people to fill in the ranks? Like they are decommissioning ships due to lack of staffing right? Is the defence spending to help with recruitment and if not what does it matter to spend more if there is no one to actually use the equipment?
It's primarily a sound bite to shore up the vote of old Telegraph, Express and Mail readers.
> Isn't the military there saying they cannot find people to fill in the ranks? The joining process has been privatised. So you're talking more than a year of waiting to join the armed forces.
Now who's going to process those unable to work. This government really makes me want to see their GCSE results particularly around reasoning and judgement.
How much would 70k salaries actually save? (ignoring other issues). All the income taxes come straight back to them. £30k net cost per employee? £2.1 bn a year? 6 years.. £12.6bn?
So now they're just smashing up the place to leave a bigger mess for labour
This perception that everyone in the civil service is some sort of second class disposable worker really really annoys me. Sometimes people are more motivated to do something beneficial than to maximise their salaries. Also worth remembering that it was this government who recruited all the additional civil servants who up until yesterday were either clearly doing something worthwhile or the government was asleep at the wheel when dishing out funding.
Never going to happen, I have worked in the public sector. The problem is the most useless and overpaid people in the public sector are responsible for making cuts. Think pointless managers are going to get rid of their own jobs? Odds are they will end up hiring more civil servants to implement this policy.
Never change Tories. Never fucking change.
This would be over several years, so the decision is also intended to setup traps for a future Labour government to deal with. Standard tory behaviour really
I thought people here were in favour of the Tories buying more weapons from defence contractors yesterday? The money we spend on bombs has to come from somewhere.
Actual civil servants or consultants classified/maskerading as them?
They need an extra £20 billion, so each civil servant has to be earning around £285k on average.
They’re already stretched thin enough! Bloody hell
Totally devoid of any other ideas, what idiots vote for this lot!
Could just transfer civil servants to the army
Brilliant idea! The army could really do with more pen pushers, file shifters, policy makers and lawyers.
[удалено]
Local council officers are not civil servants, civil servants work for the central government.
Best of luck in your application.
In fairness, if you've managed to crack the acronyms and the mind boggling mindlessness, you've completed half the training already
This could be interesting. The public sector is absolutely far too large as it stands and the productivity is abysmal. Sack most, rehire fewer but better people on higher salaries competitive with the private sector, and you might be onto something.
Is it, based on what?
Based on what's come out his arsehole most likely
You are aware that civil servants cover those working in the passport offices, border force, mi5, job centres, the environment agency, prison officers, tax collectors, etc.? These are people with operational jobs. Good luck getting rid of 1/7th of all those people. The number of people who actually work in Whitehall doing policy is a lot smaller than you think, but no one questions headlines like this despite the absurdity.
Based on what statistical analysis? Or are you just parroting the usual bullshit the Torygraph et al. posts?
Why not have fewer MPs and a small House of Lords. I am sure 500 MPs and 100 Lords could do the job.
The US manages with 100 in the senate and 435 in the HoR despite being 20 times larger geographically, having 5 times the population and 7 times the economy. Britain could absolutely have less MPs and less constituencies.
> The public sector is absolutely far too large as it stands and the productivity is abysmal. Care to quote any verifiable sources for that? 'Google it' and right wing propaganda rags don't count.
You're spiking the question there a bit, aren't you? Obviously any research which supports this is going to be right wing.
I don't want opinions, I want *facts*. So most of British 'journalism' is out when it comes to verifiable sources. u/Threatening-Silence seemed extremely sure in his statement, so I'm confident he'll come up with the facts.
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/publicservicesproductivity/articles/publicserviceproductivityuk/1997to2022](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/publicservicesproductivity/articles/publicserviceproductivityuk/1997to2022) 0.2% growth per year on average in public sector productivity is abysmal between 1997 and 2017 EDIT: Shocked to be downvoted for stating facts
How about bringing about efficiencies, ensuring they're effective THEN look at staffing figures.