The civil service grew under the Tories. Can Starmer reduce it without further harming morale?

With departments required to make 5% budget cuts, including job cuts, civil servants are in for a demanding period ahead

Many civil servants breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the back of the Conservatives in July – a hoped-for end to long-running pay disputes, the looming axe of job cuts and a sense of overall chaos.

The past decade has seen a churn of ministers, with three different prime ministers in 2022 alone and 67 cabinet appointments. The civil service endured being dismissed as “the blob” by ministers and Jacob Rees-Mogg pushing for up to 90,000 jobs to be cut.