Boris Johnson set for showdown over Whitehall job cuts

Boris Johnson is heading for a stand-off with the civil service after ordering ministers to slash the size of Whitehall by a fifth to free up billions for tax cuts.

The prime minister yesterday used a “cost-of-living” cabinet away day in the Midlands to demand that his senior ministers “redouble their efforts to ease the financial pressure on struggling families” by cutting up to 90,000 civil service jobs, the Daily Mail reported.

Johnson told the paper that Whitehall had become “swollen” during the pandemic, adding: “We have got to cut the cost of government to reduce the cost of living.”

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‘Boris vs blob’

Addressing ministers during the meeting in Stoke-on-Trent, Johnson said that taking action to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis must ​​be at the “forefront” of all government work, according to The Sun’s deputy political editor Kate Ferguson.

She added that the PM told his cabinet colleagues: “I wake up every day thinking about what we can do to help people through this period, just as we helped people through Covid.”

Slashing the size and scale of the civil service has been a long-standing aim for the prime minister since his election in 2019. His former right-hand man Dominic Cummings has previously labelled Whitehall “the blob” in a dig at its size, Ferguson said.

ITV News’s deputy political editor Anushka Asthana last night tweeted details of a letter sent by Cabinet Secretary Simon Case that set out plans to reduce the size of the civil service to 2016 levels within three years. This, Asthana said, would entail around 91,000 job losses.

Ministers are understood to have been given one month to devise a plan to cut staff numbers in a move that could “save about £3.5 billion a year”, the Daily Mail reported, “freeing up resources to help ease the cost of living”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the minister for Brexit opportunities and government efficiency, this morning defended the plan, telling Sky News: “I know it sounds eye-catching but it’s just getting back to the civil service we had in 2016.

“Since then we’ve had to take on people for specific tasks. So dealing with the aftermath of Brexit and dealing with Covid, there’s been a reason for that increase, but we’re now trying to get back to normal.”

Storm brewing

The prime minister last night told the Daily Mail that the savings will be funnelled directly into tax cuts, saying: “Every pound the government pre-empts from the taxpayer is money they can spend on their own priorities, on their own lives.”

But the jobs “bloodbath” has put the government on a “collision course” with the civil service’s “powerful” unions, the paper added.

FDA general secretary Dave Penman said that if the PM decides to go through with job cuts, he will also have to choose “what the reduced civil service will no longer have the capacity to do”. This could affect services such as passports, border control or health.

“Without an accompanying strategy, these cuts appear more like a continuation of the government’s civil service culture wars – or even worse, ill-thought out, rushed job slashes that won’t lead to a more cost-effective government,” he added.

Labour also attacked the plans, arguing that the government is pursuing “pointless rhetoric” while displaying a “lack of action” when it comes to implementing an emergency budget to offer more support to people struggling with bills.

Alex Thomas, an expert on policymaking and the civil service at the Institute for Government think-tank, tweeted a warning that 90,000 job cuts cannot be achieved by only cutting “back office” roles.

“Don’t believe anyone who says 90,000 can be delivered with efficiencies alone,” he warned. “Ministers must prioritise if they want to avoid spreading resource too thinly and failing in their policy plans.”

He also added that plans to reduce the size of the civil service through a “recruitment freeze” are “crude”, saying: “It means cuts hit randomly. And it’s hard to move resources around the civil service – people have different skills, experience and contracts.”

The move shows Johnson “attempting to wrest the agenda away from COVID law-breaking”, said Politico’s Alex Wickham, providing the PM with a much-needed respite after the Metropolitan Police last night announced a further 50 fixed penalty notices for rule-breaking in Downing Street.

But it has set up “a major showdown with the civil service”, he added.