Representing you throughout the government’s civil service reform agenda
Yesterday’s Spring Statement has highlighted what has been obvious for some time; the government is in a difficult fiscal position. Tight public finances have become more constrained, inflation remains high, and economic growth is sluggish. On top of this, the need to increase defence spending due to international security concerns has reduced available resources for other departments. You can read my reaction to the Spring Statement in the Guardian where I have called on government to rebuild trust with our civil servants.
Last week, I wrote to the Prime Minister to urge his government to work closely with trade unions on these reforms. It is vital that we are engaged at the earliest possible stage in conversations about change because reform will only be effectively delivered by working with the workforce.
Ministers have set a target to reduce the civil service administration budget by 15% by 2030. The government has also announced reforms to the civil service to create a more cost-effective and agile state. Prospect has no issue with the idea of civil service reform in principle, but we have significant concerns about focusing solely on a blunt savings target and the potential consequences.
At Prospect, we are committed to working positively with employers on change. And whilst savings may look good on paper in the short term, there are often unintended consequences that undermine future capacity. In government, savings in one area can too easily lead to increased costs elsewhere down the line.
One of the most concerning risks is the impact of cost-cutting on staff, as this often results in the loss of essential skills and institutional knowledge that can be very hard to replace. The suggestion that savings will only come from ‘administration’ is misleading. In the civil service, ‘administration’ covers much more than office staff – it includes essential roles such as policy experts, government scientists, and other functions.
If the government successfully recruits thousands more digital and data specialists into the civil service, for example, they too will fall under the ‘administration’ budget. In representing you, we have asked for more clarity on which functions will be affected by these cuts and how the government plans to maintain critical expertise.
The distinction between ‘back-office’ and ‘frontline’ public servants also needs to be reconsidered. As our members know, many civil servants are already on the front lines of government. Our members at the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, for instance, are directly involved in carrying out the government’s key missions. Many costly policy mistakes in recent years have been the result of a lack of expertise at the centre of government, not an excess of it. Speaking to Times Radio earlier this month, I spoke up for our members who work for regulators and made clear how important your work is.
Government must also recognise the fine line between cutting bureaucracy and undermining the vital work staff at our government agencies carry out. We know that good regulation is the foundation of economic success, not a barrier to it. We will continue to make this case to government.
We have been very clear that we are not opposed to reform. The Prime Minister was right to say that civil servants often find themselves “good people, trapped in a bad system.” We are also optimistic about the potential for technology to improve both the operation of government and our members’ working lives. However, these improvements require real investment, in both people and systems. A more specialist civil service must inevitably be a better-paid civil service. This reform agenda risks focusing too much on meeting savings targets, rather than on broader goals of improving effectiveness, as I warned over the weekend.
Finally, the way the government has communicated these changes has been far from ideal. Civil servants often hear about changes to their jobs from the media before even senior staff have been officially briefed. If the government wants to bring civil servants and their unions on board with their reform agenda, this approach needs to stop. Government must spend more time engaging directly with civil servants and unions, and less time talking about them.
We want to work with the government on the next steps of their plan. We will continue pushing ministers for answers, and Prospect officers will be engaging with you, our civil service members, at branch level over the coming weeks and months.
