Reform UK civil service plan ‘would sack more planning officers than exist’

A Reform UK plan to cut the size of the civil service would involve sacking more planning officers than exist and getting rid of at least two-thirds of the psychologists who support prison officers’ welfare, it has emerged. The policy paper , led by the Reform MP Danny Kruger and published in December, promises to save more than £5bn a year by cutting civil service roles, with the full-time-equivalent (FTE) headcount falling by 13%. Titled Storm and Sunshine, the report calls for a particular focus on areas such as communications, where it says numbers would be reduced by 60%, and human resources, where a two-thirds reduction is envisaged. Among detailed proposals for other areas, the paper calls for a “reduction of 450 FTEs in planning, accounting for £40m a year”. According to the 2025 statistics for civil servants employed in each role, however, there are only 445 planners employed across the civil service in Britain, about a third of them at the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Asked how it would be possible to sack more planners than existed, a Reform spokesperson said the total included 440 people employed as planning inspectors at the MHCLG. “Our number stands,” they said. The inspectors work for the Planning Inspectorate, an arm of the MHCLG which decides on planning appeals and deals with recommendations for major infrastructure projects such as power plants. …