To wonder why civil service haters don't understand that cutting 10,000 jobs is going to hurt everyone

Which sectors of the civil service will be affected? Will it be DWP, cabinet office, home office, moj, ofgem?

And, of course, unlike the private sector, it is that state which bears the cost of any unemployment created. It’s much easier to hire and fire in the private sector, particularly to break the law doing so, because there is less political comeback from playing fast and loose with employment rights. The Government can’t be seen to break its own laws.

How is Keir Starmer basically a Tory?

The problem with getting rid of lots of people is that it initially costs a lot of money to do it legally - you have to be able to afford to do it. The problem with getting rid of people when you have creaking infrastructure and need to invest hugely in technology to improve efficiency is that it costs money before you get the efficiency savings. There is no way of efficiently, legally and instantly saving money, despite the dire need to instantly save money and simultaneously become more efficient.

Usually mn is pro keeping civil service / public sector jobs so there's that, reading this thread

Wonder how many more cuts there will be

'Catastrophic'?! 10000 job losses is less than 0.03% of the working population. I am sorry you are getting slated on here as I recognise it could well be catastrophic for you and some of those who lose their jobs but for the population as a whole, it will go largely unnoticed.

I would hazard a guess that it is the unions that are spreading this 'world will end' type nonsense. I hope the public don't swallow it, we need to revolutionise the public sector and this is a start.

thats the thing if all businesses cut back to essential staff only then overall there is less money to go around then other companies will go under etc plus Ai, then companies importing goods, and outsourceing etc it all adds up its like the opposite when people say get more people working, but working doing excatly what ? especially when other businesses would not pay x workers unless they can make a profit, at some point or other people will be expandable assets

Agree with this. But you do realise that getting rid of NHS England will in no way stop the recruitment and retention problems of NHSE staff? There's a real naivety happening that all or even any savings from getting rid of NHS England will go directly into frontline services.

I've worked for NHSE and its predecessors for well over 10 years. Things have to change. Some of the work done by NHS England is important, some of it is pointless. But let's not all suddenly think that our politicians are to be trusted with making this type of decision purely to improve patient care.

To the PP who says we need to pay their unemployment benefits. Well - no. They need to get another job. It’s not working for the CS and then going onto benefits!

I would expect volunteers for redundancy to cover some of the 10,000. So those who have other jobs to go to, or just retire a bit earlier than would have happened otherwise.

It won't be the equivalent of a steel works, a mine or a factory closure.

It was in response to a vague and totally pointless statement (ie one which effectively argued the reverse). Any argument commenting on the public sector as a whole versus the private sector as a whole is pointless.

They all can get those highly paid jobs with enormous bonuses in private sector they all talk about believing in it. It justifies their demands for pay rises.

IS it though? I really hope so as the 'Chainsaw massacre' stuff in US is awful.

Thanks for explaining what Civil Service does …
you say - it’s some kind of shopping, getting the best prices and then this reduces our taxes and reduces private sector employment.

My understanding (I talk to lots of journos in my line of work) is that he's frighteningly ambitious and disconcertingly ruthless.

These qualities bode well for the NHS because, if he wants to top job one day, he's very motivated to achieve his aims around making the NHS more efficient.

The only way my patient experience is going to be better is if there are more doctors and nurses and they are paid a decent wage.
So yes I think this is exactly the kind of job that isn't needed

The problem is that they will trim the lower paid workers that actually do the work and the unnecessary managers will keep their jobs. Then we'll end up with worse services

That’s 15,000 people who need to switch to having a job in the real world, ie private sector. Culture shock incoming!

They could try bringing back the mandatory retirement age. When I left the civil service, I was managing staff in their 70s who did very little work some of who I believe were in the early stages of dementia. It’s impossible to performance management these staff as HR is so ineffectual.

So why not just give everyone money by that logic?

But in the case of public sector taxpayers, their income is from tax anyway so it is not real tax.

Only private sector tax actually benefits the country.

There are pockets of the public sector that are wealth generating. I earnt my organisation many multiples of my salary every year

They'll probably offer voluntary severance first, which is still very generous (though less generous than when I took it back in 2016). A friend took VES last year, she was able to retire at 60 so decided to take VES as she then got the severance pay as well as getting her pension lump sum. They'll get quite a lot taking that if they offer across NHSE and DHSC. Never known a department VES to be undersubscribed.

I worked as a major supplier to various government depts including both central and regional for many years providing technology solutions.

Without fail they were truly awful. Couldn’t make a decision efficiently, had meetings where a cast of thousands attended. It all went quiet and then another meeting was called with additional attendees all showing off and asking daft questions to show they were relevant.

Loved old technology because they knew what they knew and refused to move with the times. Hated taking calls from the general public so came out with all sorts of ways to avoid direct contact. Generic emails were the favourites with no owner of the mailbox so they could hide what they doing which was very little.

I am out of the company now but honestly some of the things I saw would make your toes curl.

It’s about time and I am no Labour fan but that was a good thing Starmer did. Just watch out for the ££££ in redundancy payments. NHS England was a good start…

They are not mutually sustaining.

The private sector creates wealth and the public sector drains wealth from the country.