Chancellor's announcement will seriously damage the civil service - 12 July 2004

Cuts of 104,000 civil service jobs announced by the Chancellor today were condemned by the FDA, the union representing senior public sector managers and professionals. The cuts include 40,000 jobs axed in the Budget and 20,000 to be lost in devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

FDA general secretary Jonathan Baume said: "Job cuts announced today risk seriously damaging the ability of the civil service to develop and implement new policies and programmes. This is a very retrograde way of approaching efficiency, which seems more aimed at generating politically beneficial headlines than creating a better equipped civil service. We had hoped that focusing on crude numbers-cutting was an approach abandoned 20 years ago. Even at this late stage I urge the political parties to end this jobs lottery.

"These cuts will undermine the capability of the service to respond to future challenges and changes, and will inevitably lead to an increased reliance on external consultants and contractors which we know from experience end up costing the tax payer more in the long run.

"The FDA supports measures that enhance the efficiency of the civil service and backed the premise behind Peter Gershon's efficiency review. These cuts, however, will have serious consequences for the individual civil servants involved and their families and it is not clear that they will improve the delivery of public services."

Ends

Notes for Editors
1. The FDA is the trade union and professional body representing the UK's 11,000 senior civil and public servants. Our members include policy advisors, senior managers, tax inspectors, economists, statisticians, accountants, special advisers, government lawyers, crown prosecutors and NHS managers.

2. For further information contact: