Whitehall focus Turnbull admits back-office term was wrong

17 Mar 05
Sir Andrew Turnbull has admitted that the distinction made between back-office and frontline civil servants, one of the initial tenets of the government's £40bn efficiency agenda, 'was a mistake'.

18 March 2005

Sir Andrew Turnbull has admitted that the distinction made between back-office and frontline civil servants, one of the initial tenets of the government's £40bn efficiency agenda, 'was a mistake'.

Appearing before the Commons' public administration select committee on March 10, the Cabinet secretary's comments threw into question the government's claim that slashing back-office bureaucracy is at the centre of its Whitehall efficiency drive.

Turnbull said: 'I do not have many regrets, but one of them is that the term "back-office" was a mistake.'

He claimed that distinctions between civil service jobs had been 'drawn too abruptly' since Sir Peter Gershon submitted his Treasury commissioned report into improving Whitehall efficiency last summer.

Senior Whitehall sources told Public Finance that Turnbull's interpretation was significant because there was increasing evidence that departmental redundancies include staff dealing directly with the public – the classic definition of a frontline role.

'The Cabinet secretary is almost certain to have known where the axe would fall [on civil service jobs] all along, but there is little doubt that politicians have been happy to let the public believe it was about slashing red tape,' a Whitehall source told PF. 'It seems Sir Andrew has simply been upfront about the nature of these reforms.'

Whitehall trade unions have claimed frontline job cuts would diminish the quality of public services, but Turnbull told MPs there was no reason why services should be disrupted.

He said: 'Where are the biggest reductions of staff in Gershon coming from? They are coming from the Inland Revenue and Department for Work and Pensions. A lot of these are not simply back-office people, they are people dealing with the public.

'What we are going to do is carry out [these] functions a lot more efficiently than we used to, particularly by the use of telecommunications. So efficiency improvements run all the way through the organisations.'

Committee member David Heyes accused Turnbull of a 'somersault from the sort of view promoted [by] Gershon… that we need to be promoting front-office functions and staff and diminishing the importance and expense of back-office functions, and that is where the 80,000 cuts in civil service are going to be targeted'.

When Chancellor Gordon Brown published Gershon's report last July, he announced 'a gross reduction in civil service posts of 84,150 – to release resources from administration to invest in the front line'.

Unions oppose 'cheap' MoD payoffs for 10,000 jobs

The Ministry of Defence will announce details of a 10,000 reduction in civil service posts this week, but unions have warned staff against accepting the severance package on offer.

MoD officials plan to slash 11,500 posts by 2008 as part of the government's £40bn Whitehall efficiency agenda. Up to 10,000 UK-based posts and 1,500 overseas jobs will be cut. An MoD spokesman confirmed that an internal announcement on the UK posts was set for March 18.

Public Finance has learned that the MoD will propose a standard 'flexible retirement' programme to meet its target.

Staff thinking of leaving the department over the next few years, and those set to retire soon, will be encouraged to join an early release scheme that will run until 2008.

Staff aged 50 or over could be offered an extra six months severance pay as part of the deal, which will be linked to years of service for younger civil servants.

But the trade union Prospect, which represents specialist MoD personnel, has advised members to hold out for a compulsory redundancy package.

Steve Jary, Prospect's MoD national secretary, told PF that he had argued in favour of compulsory terms because the payoffs were higher.

'There is a feeling that the department is trying to do this on the cheap. It is quite possible that it cannot meet its target of 10,000 posts without offering compulsory terms – and those terms are the least that these staff deserve if their jobs are to be cut,' he said.

OGC could help to save billions on construction

The Office of Government Commerce could contribute to savings of between £500m and £2.6bn in construction if it spread more of its best practice, the National Audit Office has found.

The watchdog praised the OGC for helping Whitehall deliver construction projects on time and within budget. A report, published on March 15, found that more than half the projects met initial time and cost projections.

Between April 2003 and December 2004, 55% of projects were delivered to budget, compared with just 25% in 1999, avoiding overspends of £800m. Similarly, 63% of projects were finished on time, compared with 34% in 1999.

But the NAO said there was considerable scope for further improvement. It recommended departments provide longer-term funding to maximise the benefits of collaborative working as well as strengthening the leadership of programmes.

Auditor general Sir John Bourn said: 'Even if only 20% of these improvements are practicable, this would still release some £500m to be reinvested in frontline public services or higher-quality built assets.'

PFmar2005

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