## Notes from 19 December 2025 [[2025-12-18|← Previous note]] ┃ [[2025-12-20|Next note →]] Discovered this site today: [https://preparingforgovernment.com/](https://preparingforgovernment.com/) This is [[Reform UK]]'s policy development portal. The civil service reform section is authored by [[Danny Kruger]], MP for East Wiltshire. Kruger defected from the Conservatives in September 2025. Background: Eton, Oxford PhD in history, Centre for Policy Studies, speechwriter for David Cameron, political secretary to Boris Johnson (2019). Now leads Reform UK's "Preparing for Government" unit under [[Zia Yusuf]] (the party's head of policy). The document "[Storm and Sunshine](https://preparingforgovernment.com/civil-service-reform)" proposes cutting 68,500 FTE roles (13% of civil service headcount), claiming £5.2 billion in annual savings. Here is their diagnosis: - Civil service back to 500,000 (2006 peak levels) after post-2010 "austerity" cuts reversed - Local government workforce down a third since 2010 while national civil service recovered completely - Grade inflation: Private Secretary roles used to be mid-level positions (~£40k), but are now classified as senior roles (~£60k). - Policy profession doubled since 2016 - Cabinet Office grew from 2,000 to 10,000 people in 15 years - Corporate functions duplicated between departments and Cabinet Office Specific cuts proposed: - Policy: 50% cut (back to 2016 levels) - Comms: 60% cut - HR: 67% cut (to 1:100 ratio) - Other back-office: 25% cut - Internal-facing professions: 50% cut Management reforms: - Link pay to performance with £500m bonus pool - Reduce pension entitlements in favor of higher wages for high performers - End automatic progression and grade inflation - More external hires (74% of Commissioner-chaired competitions went to existing civil servants last year) - Mandatory office work ### What's notable **The productivity measurement angle is interesting**: The document emphasizes measuring productivity and "firing well" - targeting underperformers rather than across-the-board cuts that lose top talent. This is a real problem: voluntary dismissal schemes systematically select for the people most confident they can get jobs elsewhere. **No culture war in management**: Unlike [Trump's Presidential Management Agenda](https://www.performance.gov/pma/), there's no attempt to inject ideological criteria into HR decisions. The DEI critique is there but framed around merit-based promotion, not loyalty tests or political alignment requirements. **The "confidential evidence" mechanism**: They're soliciting anonymous input from serving civil servants about waste, bureaucracy, accountability failures. Also from citizens. This is smart positioning - many people may agree with the reform agenda but fear association with a party labeled far-right. **Critique of Labour's approach seems fair**: ad hoc departmental cuts, voluntary redundancy, natural wastage = worst possible way to reduce headcount. The people you want to keep leave; the people you want gone stay. ### What's missing or underdeveloped **Institutional design for the center**: The document calls the Cabinet Office "dysfunctional" and argues it should be "leaner, more strategic, more data-focused," but stops short of detailing the replacement structure. This is a noticeable gap given the **[[Public Sector Reform in the UK#The Maude Review (2023)|Maude Review]]** provided a concrete blueprint they are surely aware of: splitting the center into an _Office of Prime Minister and Cabinet (OPMC)_ for strategy and an _Office of Budget and Management (OBM)_ for functions and expenditure (The [[Institute for Government (IfG)]] also has a plan via their _[Commission on the Centre of Government](https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/commission-centre-government)_). **Implementation mechanism for "fire underperformers"**: Easy to say, hard to do within existing employment frameworks. The document acknowledges "current terms and conditions and union agreements on consultation must be respected". This tension isn't resolved. **Pension reform specifics**: Mentions reducing pension entitlements in favor of higher wages (which is great!) but no design details. The 29% employer pension contribution is a real fiscal issue, but changing it affects recruitment/retention dynamics in complex ways. ### Problems with the framing **Cutting HR may undermine the performance agenda**: The document proposes gutting HR by 67% while simultaneously demanding better performance management. But who runs the performance measurement systems? Who supports managers in documenting underperformance and navigating dismissal processes? Who designs the bonus allocation frameworks? It's not clear how you get sophisticated people management with a skeleton crew to implement it. These goals may be in tension. **"Back office vs frontline" may be playing to the gallery**: The document explicitly protects "operational roles such as Border Control, DWP assessors, Home Office caseworkers, HMRC tax investigators, prison officers". Politically safe. But a lot of potential savings and productivity gains are probably in frontline operations too... that's where most of the headcount and budget actually sits. **Policy cuts often displace to consultancy spending**: There's a pattern: when governments cut internal policy capacity, they tend to backfill with external consultants. The spend shows up in a different budget line, but the work still gets done, often at higher cost and with less institutional memory. The document doesn't address this dynamic. Cutting 50% of the policy profession without a plan for what happens to the analytical work raises the question: does this trade visible headcount for hidden consultancy invoices? --- When I compare this to what passes for right-wing policy thinking in Brazil (I'm talking about Bolsonarists), the contrast is visible. This is a document that engages with actual administrative problems, cites research, and proposes measurable targets. It has real analytical gaps (see above), but there's a policy development process happening. Brazil's right has no equivalent capacity — mostly culture war and grievance, no serious engagement with state reform mechanics. I have no sympathy for Reform UK as a party. But refusing to engage with their policy proposals because of partisan stigma means missing both useful ideas and important critiques. Progressives should be able to articulate their own version of "fire underperformers" and "measure productivity" without ceding this ground.