Government missions at risk without urgent Civil Service reform – think tank

The Government risks failing to achieve its key missions if it does not move quickly to address instability, “confused” workforce planning and diminishing morale across the Civil Service, research has found.

There is little evidence that the Government’s five missions “have truly gripped Whitehall” despite Sir Keir Starmer’s call for “a complete rewiring of the British state”, according to new analysis.

Leading think tank the Institute for Government (IfG) described the next six months as “critical” for Civil Service reform and delivery, with ministers required to make quick progress, “think more radically” and “sustain a focus on reform over the long term”.

The Labour Government’s pledge to be “mission-led” has been portrayed by the Prime Minister as a new way of operating that will require “a complete rewiring of the British state”.

But the IfG described plans as “vague” and its annual Whitehall Monitor report found there is “much work to do”, with delivery of the overarching five missions requiring “a clear and radical governance structure”.

“While mission boards have been established, they have not yet gripped their tasks and have been created alongside existing government structures rather than replacing and directing them,” the report said.

The analysis of how government has changed since Labour’s victory in the July 2024 election and its early impact identified a number of key challenges that must be addressed urgently.

Described as “perhaps most obvious” was poor workforce planning, with Civil Service numbers continuing to grow since the EU referendum in 2016 to just over 500,000 in 2024.

There was a drop in the number of officials leaving the Civil Service in 2023/24, but the analysis found a large increase in moves between departments.

“Talented people are still cycling through jobs too quickly, failing to develop sufficient expertise to do them to the best of their ability,” the IfG said, adding Civil Service pay structures “incentivise such movement” and “inflation-eroded pay fuels even more movement and contributes to grade inflation”.

Cabinet Office statistics on the Civil Service showed the total staff turnover in 2023/24, calculated as the sum of leavers and internal transfers, at just under 13% – the second highest churn in the Civil Service since 2010/11.

Turnover was highest in the Department of Health and Social Care at 24%, followed by the Treasury with 22% and the Cabinet Office with 20%.

The Civil Service staff survey in 2024 revealed morale had slightly dropped again, but there was satisfaction with recent pay increases.

“But officials’ increasingly negative views about their leadership and how change is managed show that the Civil Service needs an injection of energy and direction,” the IfG said.

Despite increases in pay, the IfG said Civil Service wages remain “uncompetitive”, with average pay in 2024 nearly returning to the 2010 level in real terms and pay for senior officials 24% lower than five years ago.

Jack Worlidge, IfG senior researcher and lead report author, said: “Fundamental problems in Whitehall are risking the success of the Government’s missions. Fixing these challenges – from excessive staff turnover to falling morale and grade inflation – must be the starting point for Civil Service reform.

“Both the problems and potential solutions have been raked over for years, and in some cases for decades. So there will be little excuse for a lack of progress this year. The Government must move beyond its vague plans and use 2025 to kickstart meaningful reforms in Whitehall.”

When Sir Keir Starmer appointed career civil servant Sir Chris Wormald as his cabinet secretary last month, he publicly charged him with wholesale reform of Whitehall processes, describing “too many” of the 500,000-strong workforce as “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.

A government spokesperson said: “Under our Plan for Change, we are making sure every part of government is delivering on working people’s priorities, galvanising the whole of Whitehall towards a shared purpose through our missions.

“To support this, we are working at pace to develop a strategic plan for a more efficient and effective civil service, which will include bold measures to improve skills, harness digital technology and improve public services.”

The Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union called on the Government to see “value” in “paying and treating its own workforce well” as it called for the introduction of collective bargaining across all Civil Service employers, and for outsourced contracts to be brought back in-house.

This would help make the Civil Service “more flexible, more agile and more attractive to new recruits”, it added.

PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote said: “Another year, another report into excessive staff turnover and falling morale in the Civil Service.

“Unless the new Government addresses these long-running issues by paying civil servants a fair wage, making them feel valued as employees, what’s to say we won’t be back here in 12 months?

“Society as a whole benefits from a fully functioning, fully resourced Civil Service. This is a chance for the Government to help provide just that.”