More than 90,000 civil servants will likely lose their jobs in an attempt by Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to find money to ease the cost-of-living crisis in the UK.
The Prime Minister is understood to have tasked the Cabinet with cutting staff by a fifth, telling them – every bit of cash saved on government spending could be better used elsewhere, The Guardian reported.
“We have got to cut the cost of government to reduce the cost of living for the British people. Every pound the government pre-empts from the taxpayer is money they can spend on their own priorities and on their own lives,” he told the Daily Mail.
A government spokesperson noted: “The Prime Minister and other Ministers are clear that the civil service does an outstanding job delivering for the public and driving progress on the government’s priorities.
“But when people and businesses across the country are facing rising costs, the public rightly expect their government to lead by example and run as efficiently as possible.”
PM Johnson has asked Ministers to return civil servant numbers to those of 2016 in the coming years, with staffing having increased by almost 25% to 475,000 full-time equivalent jobs.
Ministers will have a month to put together proposals for how they will achieve this within their departments.
The Prime Minister hinted at future tax cuts, suggesting the billions saved from reducing civil servant numbers could help fund such measures.
