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Civil Servants (Redundancy)

Volume 546: debated on Wednesday 13 June 2012

All Departments are rightly required to maximise opportunities for redeployment within the Government and to make all reasonable efforts to avoid compulsory redundancies. All Departments also have in place appropriate support for those employees affected, including retraining, career coaching and advice, and help with CV writing.

Since the coalition Government were formed, 1,000 senior civil servants have left the civil service. How many senior civil servants does the Minister expect to leave in the immediate future?

As I said a little earlier, the size of the civil service has already fallen to its smallest since the second world war, and there will be further downsizing, as we have made clear. The resignation rate of senior civil servants is stable: there is no higher turnover than before.

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that next week the Government are going to publish their civil service reform plan, and that this issue may be one that the plan addresses as the Government try to set out a clear change programme for the whole of government?

We will publish in due course a plan for civil service reform, the pattern of which will be incremental reform that is capable of implementation. It should not be another civil service reform plan that lies unimplemented, gathering dust on library shelves.