LONDON (BLOOMBERG) – Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak plans to cut tens of thousands of jobs within the United Kingdom civil service over the next three years, the Financial Times reported Saturday (Dec 25).
The Treasury is expected to set parameters for the reductions in early 2022, the newspaper reported, citing people briefed on the plans.
The reductions are meant to save government budgets 5 per cent over the next three years.
The cuts may undermine Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s effort to spread civil servant positions to left-behind areas, trade unions warned.
The current government programme envisioned 22,000 roles being moved from London by 2030, according to the FDA union. While Sunak’s plan implies a loss of 49,000 positions, the result is likely to be less severe because some jobs are exempt.
Sunak said at his spending review two months ago that he wanted to shrink the civil service’s size to pre-pandemic levels by the middle of the decade.
