Steve Barclay was able to significantly reduce the number of employees in the Department of Health Credit: Jeff Pugh for The Telegraph
Steve Barclay fired one in six civil servants in The Department of Health and Welfare as it starts the war on government waste.
Government figures show hundreds fewer mandarins are now working under the health minister than at the start of Rishi Sunak's premiership. .
Approximately 3,978 civil servants were hired by the department on October 31, the start of Mr. Barclay's first full week in his current post.
By July 18, that number had dropped to 3,316. , according to data released by the Department of Health and Welfare in response to a written parliamentary question submitted by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
A Whitehall source told The Telegraph: «Steve has always been interested in cutting down on bureaucracy and benefiting taxpayers.
«This goes back to when he was a member of the Public Accounts Committee after he was first elected to Parliament and when he was chief secretary of the treasury.
“In just a few months as Minister of Health, he was able to significantly reduce the number of civil servants in the Whitehall department by making sure that more money goes to the front lines – whether it’s more money for doctors and nurses or the latest technology, all of which are aimed at reducing waiting lists and faster improvement in the treatment of people.”
The Telegraph understands that the reduction was mainly achieved through a suspension of hiring, as well as a reduction in the use of consultants and some voluntary layoffs.
The spending review agreed to a 26% reduction from a peak of 4,950 full-time employees at the end of the previous fiscal year in March 2022 to 3,650 by March 2025.< /p>
However, under Mr. Barclay, the department met its target at 3,650 employees 21 months earlier than agreed in the review agreement.
«Taxpayers should rejoice»
Conservative MPs were quick to applaud Mr. Barclay's crackdown.
Craig McKinley, MP for South Thanet, said: “Taxpayers should always rejoice at a reduction in public service.
“This not only frees up skilled professionals to work in the private sector. , to the manufacturing sector of the economy, it also makes departments more economical and, in my opinion, more efficient.
“In many government departments, I often wonder what these ranks of people are actually doing, besides creating a bureaucracy and worsening the situation for the population that pays taxes for these services. Well done, Steve Barclay.”
Marco Longhi, MP for Dudley North, added: “This government has invested in the NHS in a way no previous government has.
“We are now spending gigantic sums of money on our National Health Service, so much so that the National Health Service is now the largest employer in Europe.”
“I think most people will We are very pleased with this news, especially since we are always short of doctors and nurses.
«Because this money goes to the front lines, we hope people get only better results from this treasured service.»
Sir Jacob, who served alongside Mr. Barclay in Boris. Johnson's office says: «Steve was the driving force behind Boris's attempt to reduce the civil service by 90,000 people and is putting it into practice in his department.»
«He leads by example, and others should follow, because that nothing irritates taxpayers more than gratuitous waste and overemployment in the public service.”
Bureaucratism
Mr. Barclay has made service improvement and red tape reduction two of his central objectives. goals. This month he ordered hospital chiefs to hire more doctors and nurses instead of managers.
He told trusts in England that the £2.4bn extra money pumped into the system as part of Mr Sunak's reforms should be spent on recruiting medical personnel.
During his brief tenure as health secretary in the final months of Boris Johnson's premiership, Mr Barclay said that overmanagement had become a burden on the NHS frontline.
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A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said: «The Secretary of Health and Human Services is working with the department to successfully reduce costs and ensure that more money can be directed to frontline services.»
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