Quango crackdown as Starmer reportedly set to slash civil service jobs
The Prime Minister is reportedly planning to slash thousands of civil service jobs amid a crackdown on quangos, as he aims to radically overhaul the British state.
Sir Keir Starmer will deliver a speech on Thursday, in which he will set out plans to cut thousands more Whitehall jobs than expected, according to the Guardian.
The Labour leader will also announce the reorganisation of more than 300 quangos – a semi-public administrative body outside the government, but state-funded – including NHS England, which together employ almost 300,000 people, the newspaper added.
It comes as part of money-saving efforts, which could include scrapping whole teams in a bid to dodge duplicative work, across a range of bodies that spend some £353bn of public money.
While the Guardian also reported that Downing Street and the Treasury are looking at plans from government-linked thinktank Labour Together to reshape the UK’s state.
These have reportedly been dubbed ‘Project Chainsaw’ in a reference to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is behind controversial cuts to US federal bodies under President Donald Trump’s administration, after he wielded a chainsaw on stage.
Quango shake-up
Starmer told his cabinet ministers at their weekly meeting on Tuesday that the government “must go further and faster to reform” and that he wants to create a “strong, agile and active state that delivers for working people”.
He stressed ministers should be “taking responsibility for decisions rather than outsourcing them to regulators and bodies as had become the trend under the previous government”.
While Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden outlined changes to the civil service including “performance management to incentivise delivery” and reform of digital and IT infrastructure.
Quangos which could be set for the chop reportedly may include Homes England, which is responsible for new affordable housing, which would give ministers more control over their promise to build 1.5m new homes during this parliament.
Other bodies could be merged, taken in-house to departments or scrapped entirely, government sources have reportedly said, although since being elected Labour has also created more than 20 new quangos including GB Energy, Skills England and the Office for Value for Money.
It comes after the government yesterday moved to scrap the Payments Systems Regulator (PSR) merging its functions with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).