Moment Rachel Reeves reveals how many civil service jobs will be cutSky News
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00:00I'm confident that we can reduce civil service numbers by 10,000.
00:03No, but you have to be straight with people.
00:05How many civil servants are going to lose their jobs in broad terms?
00:10OK, I'm not asking for, you know, 532 or 5,027,
00:15but broadly speaking, is it 5,000, is it 10,000, is it 15,000?
00:19We've said 10% to 15%, 15% by the end of the Parliament,
00:24reduction in admin budget. In numbers?
00:26No, in admin budget.
00:28So, that includes consultancy, it includes travel budgets,
00:31it includes communications budgets.
00:33So, it doesn't all have to be about people.
00:35But when we make those savings...
00:37As long as it is going to be about people.
00:38You can't say this is going to be pain-free.
00:41No, but what I am saying is it will deliver better public services,
00:45because I would rather we had people employed by the NHS
00:48working in our hospitals rather than in a government department.
00:52So, this is about doing things differently,
00:54putting money where people see it most.
00:56This is what people say about politicians.
00:59I ask you a question that says,
01:00broadly speaking, how many roles are going to get lost?
01:04I cannot believe that you're telling your colleagues,
01:08we need to take 10% out without any idea
01:11how many of those are going to be actual jobs.
01:13I just cannot believe that that's what you're doing.
01:16I'm confident that we can reduce civil service numbers by 10,000.
01:20And during Covid, there were big increases
01:24in the number of people who were working in the civil service.
01:27That was the right thing to do, to respond to those challenges.
01:31But it's not right that we just keep those numbers there forever.