Jacob Rees-Mogg has said plans to cut more than 90,000 civil service jobs to free up billions of pounds for measures to ease the cost-of-living crisis are not the same as a return to austerity.
During a day off with cabinet ministers in Stoke-on-Trent on Thursday, the Prime Minister asked cabinet ministers to report within a month on how they can reduce the size of their departmental templates at 2016 levels.
The move would involve a reduction of around a fifth of the 475,000-strong workforce, which the government says would save around £3.5bn a year.
Speaking to Sky News on Friday, the Minister of brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency Jacob Rees Mogg said the government is trying to get the civil service “back to normal” after hiring “additional people for specific tasks,” including COVID-19 and Brexit.
The Latest in Politics: ‘Stitch-up’ Job Selection Line
Asked if cutting staff numbers constitutes a return to austerity, Rees-Mogg said: “I don’t think it’s because what you’re doing is going back to the efficiency levels that we had in 2016.”
He said the easiest way to reduce staffing levels is to “freeze recruitment” since “as many as 38,000 people each year leave the civil service.”
Rees-Mogg added: “But there will be efficiencies to be gained in some departments through more automation, more use of technology, which is something every sane company will do with perfectly reasonable and sensible ambition.”
He continued: “The only thing that is ideological is that we should spend taxpayers’ money properly and not waste it.”.
“It’s about doing things right. It’s about governing effectively and recognizing that every penny we collect in taxes has to come off the backs of hard-working people.”
The announcement was described as “another headline-grabbing stunt or reckless act of slash-and-burn of public services” by the head of the FDA civil servants union.
Use the Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Prince Charles says the government’s priority is ‘to grow and strengthen the economy and help reduce the cost of living’
It comes as Johnson faces pressure to do more to tackle the cost of living crisis, which has seen inflation soar to its highest level in three decades, with Conservative MPs pushing for tax cuts and Labor accusing him of being “devoid of ideas”.
The prime minister told the Daily Mail, which was first to report on the planned cuts, that the civil service had become “bloated” during the pandemic.
He added: “Every pound the government takes from taxpayers is money they can spend on their own priorities, on their own lives.”
The announcement appears to flesh out a comment by the Prime Minister during the Queen’s Speech debate earlier this week, when he spoke about the need to “cut the cost of government”.
Read more:
Cost of living concerns send consumer confidence into a ‘free fall’
Cost of living: see how much your spending has increased
ITV News reported that the prime minister and chancellor met on Monday to begin drawing up the plan, which would include a ban on filling vacancies without special permission from ministers.
A government spokesman said: “It is clear to the Prime Minister and ministers that the civil service does an outstanding job of serving the public and driving progress on government priorities.
“But when people and businesses across the country face rising costs, the public rightly expects their government to lead by example and operate as efficiently as possible.”
Follow the daily podcast on apple Podcasts, google Podcasts, spotify, speaker
Civil service unions are already at odds with ministers, led by Jacob Rees-Mogg, who are trying to pressure civil servants who have been working from home during the pandemic to return to Whitehall desks.
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, tweeted: “Ultimately, they can reduce the civil service to 2016 levels, but they must decide what the civil service should stop doing as a consequence.”
“Will the Passport Office be cut? Or the Department of Health and Social Care?
“Unless they have a serious plan, it’s another headline-grabbing stunt or reckless cutting and burning of utilities without thinking or caring about the consequences.”
Speaking to Sky News on Friday, Rees-Mogg accepted that “there is a place to work from home”, but said that public services have sometimes been negatively affected by remote work.
A Labor spokesman said: “Cabinet said it would focus on the cost of living crisis facing families across the country.
“Instead of implementing an emergency budget, they have chosen to disappoint workers yet again through senseless rhetoric and inaction.”
In the midst of the discussion about the efficiency of the civil service, Rees-Mogg was pointed out that he had arrived for his morning broadcast round along with a handful of advisers.
Asked if they were all needed, he said: “They don’t all work directly for me. They work within the Cabinet Office, and two are my special advisers.”
Reference-news.sky.com