Twas the night before Christmas…
Or is it. Tomorrow marks the Spending Review and the release of plans and budgets for many across the Civil Service, a day that people are already commenting will mark a sea change in spending. But what will this actually mean for those who have spent the last twelve months being told that the way forward is permanent hires, no wait consultants, hang on that’s expensive let’s go for permanent hires, but actually you have a headcount freeze, and let’s not even mention contingent labour (Labour).
So the UK government is at a crossroads, and speaking as Robert Johnson, I think the time for a selling of souls has come to an end. On one side, there’s growing urgency around bolstering technology and cybersecurity, modernising public services through digital innovation, and reducing reliance on expensive contractors. On the other and as I’ve mentioned, mixed messaging and blanket headcount restrictions are stalling meaningful progress and driving up costs.
I like Cat Little.
I think everyone does to be honest, but I liked JAM as well from the little I met him and I digress. At a recent Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Cat stated that the government aims to increase digital and cyber roles to 10% of the total civil service workforce. That’s up from just 2.8% in 2018 and around 6% today. Now to hit that target the government plans to replace 7,000 contractor and consultancy roles with permanent civil servants, potentially saving up to £500 million per year. But this isn’t just a numbers game, it’s about capability, and in some cases like cyber the PAC stated that around a third of specialist roles are currently either vacant or filled by contractors.
You don’t have to be an ex-PWC accountant…
…to know that contractor rates in government are often double or triple the cost of a civil servant. So clearly investment in permanent hires is small change compared to the spiralling costs of long-term consultancy or contractor dependencies. Add to that the lost institutional knowledge and fragmented delivery that can result from churn, and it’s clear that bringing digital skills in-house is both smarter and cheaper.
What’s also striking to me is how this approach aligns with the HM Treasury’s own strategic blueprint and yet people are told they can’t hire. The Fixing the Foundations report published in 2024, emphasises that delivering public value sometimes means spending more upfront. It explicitly argues that value, not just savings, should drive decisions. That includes investing in capability, and I’ve been quoting clause 84E since I first read it to anyone who will listen.
So another year older, and what have we done?
In short, not as much as the year before. Despite the HMT report, the political messaging around public sector hiring has been, at best, rather muddled.
Under the Conservative government in early 2024, departments were subjected to generic headcount freezes, with little distinction made between critical digital roles and administrative functions. I think that this Politically motivated blanket approach significantly stifled reform at the very moment the civil service needed to modernise in order to face tougher times. So, enter Mr Starmer from stage right, I mean stage left, and hopefully we can now start to see things move, even if it is after a year of frustration and red tape that he vowed so strongly to remove.
And don’t think that this is about growing the civil service for its own sake or just about reducing cost. It’s also about ensuring the UK government has the capability to respond to 21st-century challenges, from AI and data to cyber threats and public trust.
But try being told to recruit top digital talent while simultaneously being told to freeze staffing. Unsurprisingly, the result is frustration and paralysis. Fortunately, senior figures like Little and others in the Treasury seem to be a little clearer in their conviction, i.e. we need to recruit smartly and not just cut indiscriminately. But the feedback that we get is that ministerial rhetoric often defaults to “shrinking the state,” undermining strategic workforce planning and leaving us and our customers hiding our faces once more in our hands.
In conclusion.
So, what will happen tomorrow and just what will be left under the tree as we scamper downstairs in our pyjamas is perhaps anyone’s guess, but, if the answer is a delightfully wrapped “something” then I’ll take it.
Personally, as a talent business the last year or so has been tough, akin to the painful eras post September 2001 and 2007, but we’re still here. We continue to talk to brilliant Civil Servants about their projects and needs who are desperately trying to deliver with one hand held fairly firmly behind their backs. I could give countless examples of customers who have spent millions with consultancies because they haven’t been able to recruit permanent talent for want of trying due to sign off and, speaking even as someone running a business that also delivers under SOW, it’s almost criminal. I doubt the cost of these delays will ever be truly known, especially once you add in the delays to delivery due to lead times once the sector is finally able to hire, but it must be substantial.
I for one dearly hope that tomorrow brings a familial reconciliation of these contradictions and sets brilliant and committed people free to do what brilliant and committed people do: use us (half joking).
Because, if we want to deliver a secure, efficient, user-friendly, digitally enabled public sector any time soon, then things need to change. In my terribly neutral and unbiased opinion, that change starts with freeing and empowering leaders to build sustainable teams of capable people.
So, cheers to Cat Little and hopefully to Rachel Reeves, here’s to sensibility and a happy ‘Christmas’ to one and all.
(Note regarding image – it was meant to be a picture of Kier Starmer standing in the doorway holding a white placard at Christmas saying “Shhh, tell them it’s the spending review” but I hit my limit on Chat GPT, and who wants to spend money on advanced technology to finish the job properly?! Maybe tomorrow.)