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Telegraph
4 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
Labour vowed to take axe to Civil Servants – they're hiring thousands more
Thousands more civil servants have been appointed in the last year, despite Sir Keir Starmer's pledge to tackle 'flabby' Whitehall. Official statistics have revealed that 12 government departments have seen an increase in the number of full-time employees in the year to March 2025. The overall increase in the number of mandarins was more than 6,000, to 516,150, according to government data released on Wednesday. The overall headcount represents the highest level of employed civil servants in almost two decades. The department with the largest rise in the number of employees was the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), which had a net increase of over 2,700 civil servants. The department, under Liz Kendall, has been partly responsible for putting forward the welfare reforms that were watered down after a backbench rebellion. The DWP is the second-largest government department after the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), so the headcount increase represents a 3 per cent increase. The MoJ hired just 90 additional civil servants last year. The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) has hired an additional 1060 civil servants – an increase of over 11 per cent on the previous year. It is understood that a bigger workforce was enlisted to deal with the department's trade deal negotiations, the industrial strategy and the workers' rights legislation. The increase is also said to partly be down to the ongoing work merging the Department for International Trade and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The Prime Minister vowed in March that the size and cost of the Whitehall would be slashed under his premiership, warning that the state had become 'overcautious and flabby'. The Cabinet Office, headed up by Pat McFadden – a key proponent of slimming down the state – announced in April that 2,100 of its jobs will be cut or moved to other parts of the Government in the next two years. But last year the department hired an additional 760 civil servants, over a third of the number of roles they have said they will cut in the next 24 months. It is understood that the Cabinet Office increases were as a result of recruitment from the fast stream careers programme, and hiring civil servants for the infected blood compensation authority. The Cabinet Office is also responsible for policy relating to the European Union and the Government's car service, both of which were under different departments before the general election. The Civil Service statistics released on Wednesday cover the final four months at the end of Rishi Sunak's premiership, as well as the first nine of Sir Keir's. The statistics also revealed that the Ministry of Defence has lost almost 2,000 civil servants in the last year. The whole Government is under pressure to cut its workforce, after the Chancellor set out plans to slash civil service budgets by 15 per cent by 2030. Rachel Reeves said in March that she was 'confident' that 10,000 civil service roles can be cut, which she specified would be 'back office jobs'. As part of its efficiency drive, Sir Keir announced that NHS England, the quango in charge of running the health service. He vowed in March to cut needless government spending, by reducing the number of arms length bodies and regulations. The move was compared to Elon Musk's drive for efficiency in the US federal government, and jokingly referred to as his 'Project Chainsaw'.
Telegraph
19-07-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Lord Hermer's departments spent £1m to help staff work from home
Government departments headed by Lord Hermer, the Attorney General, have spent more than £1m on equipment to enable their staff to work from home, figures reveal. The information, released by the Attorney General's Office in response to parliamentary questions tabled by a former Tory cabinet minister, show that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), the Government Legal Department (GLD), and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) spent at least £1.24m over the past three years on remote-working equipment. As a whole, government agencies linked to seven Whitehall departments have spent around £3m on monitors, desks and other equipment, despite a ministerial push for public sector workers to return to the office. Other big spenders included the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – a public body sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions – which spent £955,099 since 2022/23. Lord Hermer has been in charge of the legal departments since being appointed when Labour took power last July, and the figures also cover the previous two years of Tory government. Sir Stephen Timms, the social security minister, claimed the high cost of remote-working equipment 'mainly relates to provision of equipment for new starters, and HSE has increased its staff numbers in this period mainly due to becoming the building safety regulator'. Shimeon Lee, a policy analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance, told The Telegraph: 'Taxpayers will be dismayed to know that we are still investing in a work from home culture. Remote working has become the norm in the public sector, with little regard for productivity, accountability or value for money. 'While families grapple with squeezed services and sky-high taxes, officials are kitting out home offices at their expense. Ministers must get a grip and put the public back at the heart of public service.' The figures were revealed in a series of written parliamentary questions tabled by Sir John Hayes, a former Tory Cabinet minister. Sir John Hayes, the former minister who tabled the questions, told The Telegraph: 'Productivity has dipped in recent times and never recovered to its pre-Covid levels. It's probably the greatest macroeconomic challenge facing this Government. Unless it improves, it will stymie economic performance. 'The assumption that if you spend more and put more people into systems, you will get better outputs, ignores how productive they are. Remote working will further limit productivity and may make things worse. 'People work best when they are with others. The interactions between individuals inspire creativity and productivity. To deny that is to deny the fundamentals of effective working.' Whitehall has set 60pc office working minimum Last year, Whitehall chiefs agreed that 60 per cent office attendance – three days a week – was the minimum expected of staff. Many public bodies, including the CPS and Ofgem, only have a 40 per cent, or two days a week, requirement to work from an official building. Meanwhile, Ofgem, the UK's independent energy regulator, spent £396,486.26 on equipment to help staff work from home. Last year, The Telegraph revealed that the regulator was paying £3.5m a year for its luxury Canary Wharf offices despite seven out of eight of its employees working from home on a typical day. Miatta Fahnbulleh, the energy minister, said the total spent on working from home equipment for government departments 'reflected an increased headcount to deliver additional remit for key government priorities, and steps to reduce its London office footprint to save money'.
