Politicians attacked over civil service cuts

Wednesday, 1 September 2004 12:00 AM

A new report from the civil service union Prospect has accused all the main political parties of ignoring quality of service in their "dash" to make staff cuts.

Cutting the number of civil servants has been a key feature of both Labour and the Conservatives' recent policy statements. Following the Gershon efficiency review the Chancellor has promised to cut 104,000 civil service jobs.

The Conservatives have pledged to go even further in cutting "fat government" and have commissioned David James to produce a report on government waste. So far proposals, many of them controversial, to cut £80 billion in costs have been announced.

The Liberal Democrats have proposed closing down completely the Department of Trade and Industry.

Thursday's research from Prospect brands these policies as misguided and argues that the real problem facing the civil service is not overmanning but a "haemorrhaging of professional talent."

It argues that the civil service is "dangerously short of technical and scientific expertise and is constantly at risk of being ambushed by new scientific problems like GMOs, BSE, foot and mouth and MMR".

Releasing the report, Prospect's general secretary, Paul Noon, said: "The Government is busy trimming its housekeeping bills while the fabric of the building is subsiding,"

"Professionals working for government are down in number by more than a third over the last 10 years. Physicists, chemists, engineers, electronic experts, veterinary staff, environmentalists and other important specialisms have all suffered. This has reduced government's ability to respond to the demands of an increasingly knowledge-based society."

Privatisation is attacked as the single biggest factor in the "dumbing down" of the government machine. Prospect is calling for a halt to all further privatisation and the introduction of "clear criteria" for assessing the merits of competitive contracts.

It is to table a TUC conference motion warning that the Gershon efficiency review "will result in cuts to essential services, including regulation, law enforcement, national security, public health and safety at work".

It is not just the Government who have come in for criticism, however. The Conservative and Liberal Democrat proposals for more stringent cuts are described as showing a "wanton disregard for the duties of the state to its citizens".

The union is calling for a reskilling of the civil service, greater investment in higher skilled staff and for the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office to be given more control over the civil service rather than the government of the day.

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