Boris Johnson's latest challenge to Ministers to cut 91,000 Civil Service jobs continues a trend that strikes at the heart of Britain. Following on from the National Insurance rise clumsily tagged to "supporting the NHS" on payslips, the 91,000 job cuts will supposedly free up cash to tackle the cost-of-living crisis.  As usual, it appeals to a certain mentality. One that used to think most Civil Servants are sitting in Whitehall, clocking up "Gold Plated Pensions" and now think they are sitting at home, "skiving off" (or alternately working hard churning out meaningless red tape, depending on which axe you're grinding). Like the Ministers themselves, that mentality doesn't actually know what the Civil Servants are doing. It doesn't know that a lot of them work outside Whitehall, and it doesn't know that a lot of them are so lowly paid that they qualify for in-work benefits. To be fair though, the Government has been doing its best to...

  A common sense suggestion to merge civil servants and council officers could be the start of cuts to local authorities. Baron Bichard, writing in the latest Civil Service World suggests scrapping distinctions between civil servants, council officers and NHS staff and creating a unified public service. The argument, on behalf of “the Commission for Smart Government” makes sense.  If you have one public service, it will smash the bureaucratic boxes which make it hard to solve real-life problems. Michael Bichard hints that last year’s PPE crisis would have had a happier ending if – instead of lots of agencies around the country – there had been just one public service. https://www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/article/time-to-end-the-great-divide-lets-scrap-distinctions-between-civil-servants-council-officers-and-nhs-staff And of course, Michael Bichard was the first chief executive of a county council to be put in charge of a government agency (the Benefits Agency).  So ...