The new cabinet secretary has told the country’s half a million civil servants they must “do things differently” to deliver Keir Starmer’s plans for government, as Whitehall braced for job cuts and tighter spending.
New cabinet secretary vows to implement PM’s Whitehall ‘rewiring’ Chris Wormald emails civil servants saying he will back Keir Starmer, who wants them to ‘do things differently’.
He has taken charge of the civil service two weeks after Starmer claimed “too many” officials were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”, angering officials who had hoped the Labour government would take a different approach from the attacks of their Conservative predecessors.
However, there is already anxiety among the civil service over the prospect of tight budgets and job losses, with ministers planning to cut more than 10,000 posts as Whitehall departments battle to stay within spending limits.
Starmer plans to reform and improve the operation of Whitehall, boosting productivity and working beyond departmental silos to deliver his “missions” for government, including on living standards, house-building and the NHS.
