Re:View 31 October 2025
Chief Executive
This week we had the first instalment of Reform UK’s ‘preparation for government’ plans. Danny Kruger gave a speech outlining the initial steps the party would take if elected. They will, he said, “have legislation drafted. A new Ministerial Code and Civil Service Code. Orders in Council prepared. People lined up for key appointments. And it will all start on Day 1.”
The central plank of Kruger’s speech was Whitehall reform. Reform UK are promising to slash civil service headcount, overhaul accountability — “putting ministers properly in charge of the government” — sell off (or more accurately not renew leases for) multiple government departments and, as you would expect, restore Parliamentary sovereignty.
The question, of course, is how? We have been promised a significantly smaller, more capable and more accountable civil service before.
Take the question of headcount. Rightly, Kruger refused to set a target, but the implication is that we will get back to somewhere around the size before the Brexit growth — in his blog following the speech, Kruger says “a 30% cut in the civil service should be easily achievable”. Let’s be conservative and say that means 150,000 people. They want the cuts to fall most heavily on “head office functions” and give proposed cuts in comms, HR and the policy function which get us to 27,000, based on 70%, 50% and 50% cuts respectively. That leaves 123,000ish to go. That, I’m afraid, means cutting frontline staff — take DWP, which excluding agencies has a headcount of almost 94,000: just over 1,000 work in the policy profession compared to just over 73,000 in operational delivery.
Unquestionably Whitehall reform is necessary; given the state of public services and the collapse of public trust I would argue urgent. Kruger is right to make the case that ministers are not sufficiently in control. He is right that the country is “snarled…in a spaghetti of bureaucracy”. He is right that this cannot continue.
He ended his speech saying “I’m not sure our democracy can stand another government promising change and delivering failure”. On this, also, I think he is right. But actually fixing the machine, which will require radical action — as these headcount numbers show — is much, much harder. The fact that Reform UK are investing serious time and energy into developing their plans is a good thing.