Whitehall discussed sending civil servants to the regions and recruiting different types of people to the service. But should we be watching the cabinet reshuffle instead?
There’s much talk about a major shakeup of Whitehall, with some colourful language from Dominic Cummings, the all-powerful Chief of Staff in No 10, about the type of people he would like to see recruited into the civil service.
There’s talk, too, about decamping large numbers of civil servants to the regions, and even of creating regional government departments.
There is nothing new in any of this. Every incoming government talks about decamping large swathes of the civil service to the regions, and they never do.
It actually all started way back in 1963 when Harold Macmillan was Prime Minster and a review recommended relocating 57,000 posts – and only 22,500 were managed.
Relocate civil servants?
Subsequent Prime Ministers and Chancellors have all made similar bold claims – including Ted Heath, Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Gordon Brown, and more recently George Osborne who promised the number of civil servants in London would “reduce significantly”. Theresa May pledged to relocate thousands of jobs out of London by 2030.
But since 2010 every region and nation in the UK has seen a fall in the number of civil servants – down 30% in the East of England, 26% in the South West and 24% in the East Midlands. That’s a fall in numbers in every region – except London, which has seen an increase of 3%.
So, I take these bold claims of a regional relocation plan with a large pinch of salt. There’s no doubt that the outcome of the general election has changed the political dynamic very considerably, and Boris Johnson will be desperate to do anything he can to persuade those northern and West Midlands voters who voted Conservative for the first time in December to do so again when the next election comes along.
Support economic growth
Relocation of civil service jobs can be one way of bolstering employment in the regions and, with it, economic growth. But we’ve been here before and little of any real significance ever happens.
And I’m not holding my breath on Dominic Cummings’ plans for recruiting “weirdos and misfits” into the civil service, not least because he won’t be in full control of the recruitment process.
There is a formality about recruitment which even Dominic Cummings will find difficult to circumvent! And anyway, these kinds of reforms take time to deliver and bear fruit even if they do actually materialise.
In the short term what will be far more interesting is the scale of the expected Cabinet and ministerial reshuffle, which is widely anticipated for early February once we’ve left the EU on 31 January.
I always saw Boris Johnson’s first Cabinet as a Brexit “war Cabinet” focused entirely on Brexit, and that if he was re-elected in a general election and able to deliver Brexit, a major reshuffle would take place after 31 January to assemble a different Cabinet to deliver a major domestic agenda. Boris showed himself to be ruthless in his first reshuffle. He may well be again in his second.
