More than 80k civil service jobs should be scrapped to save taxpayers £5bn a year, urges report
The efficiency plan - backed by former top mandarins - includes slashing communications staff by 70 per cent and halving the HR departments.
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Whitehall 's headcount has ballooned from 380,000 to 514,000 since just 2016 - costing around £25billion in salaries and pensions.
Experts say this has only slowed government output by creating needless bureaucracy rather than investing in frontline services.
Analysis by Policy Exchange found identical jobs are being done sometimes two pay bands higher than they were 30 years ago.
Ex-Home Office director and report author Stephen Webb said a slimmed-down civil service would allow for better pay for remaining talent while making big government savings.
He said: 'The proposals in the paper don't require scaling back services, but should allow the system to work better.
"The system will be cheaper and more effective.'
Sir John Kingman, who was previously the second-in-command at the Treasury, backed the plan, adding: 'An over-resourced administrative machine inevitably generates ever more process for itself and slows itself down.'
Recommendations also include cutting the number of senior civil servants by 50 per cent, and a cap on their numbers.
It also proposes using compulsory over voluntary redundancies in order to retain the best performing staff.
Ministers have announced plans to cut £1.5billion from the civil service budget by the next election, but Policy Exchange says their plan would go 'further and faster'.
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