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More than a thousand jobs are being axed at a key government department in a move officials say will help deliver cost savings of over £100m over the three years.
Approximately 1,200 full-time jobs will be removed in the Cabinet Office through voluntary and mutually agreed exits and through not replacing some staff members who leave, while a further 900 roles will be moved to other departments.
The changes will result in the headcount of the Cabinet Office – the department headed by one of Sir Keir Starmer’s closest allies, Pat McFadden – reducing by a third.
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The Cabinet Office is responsible for supporting the prime minister and ensuring the government runs effectively.
However, there have been concerns about the increase in the size of the department following Brexit and the COVID pandemic.
The cuts form part of a wider government agenda to streamline the civil service and the size of the British state, which the prime minister criticised as “weaker than it has ever been” in a speech where he also announced he was scrapping NHS England, the administrative body that runs the health service.
Last month, Sky News reported that the Cabinet Office was one of a number of government departments to kickstart voluntary exit schemes, alongside the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs and the Foreign Office.
Voluntary exit schemes differ from voluntary redundancy schemes in that they offer departments more flexibility around the terms offered to departing staff.
Others, including the Department for Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, have yet to start schemes, but it is expected they soon will.
Cabinet Office staff were informed by Catherine Little, the permanent secretary, that the changes were being delivered to make the department smaller and more strategic and specialist in its approach.
A Cabinet Office source said: “Leading…
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