Cabinet Office written question – answered at on 19 May 2025.
Baroness Finn
Shadow Minister (Cabinet Office)
To ask His Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the total cost of (1) redundancy, (2) severance, and (3) human resources consultancy, as a result of the planned reduction of 2,100 roles in the Cabinet Office.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip), Lords Spokesperson (Cabinet Office), Lords Spokesperson (Northern Ireland Office), Lords Spokesperson (Wales Office), Lords Spokesperson (Scotland Office)
The Cabinet Office has announced plans to restructure and reorganise, to create a more strategic, specialist, and smaller centre of government.
Savings will be made from non-pay budgets and pay budgets, and we expect up to 1,200 staff will leave the department in the next two years. Our priority is to achieve the necessary reductions through voluntary means or attrition. So far, 540 employees have been approved to leave through the Voluntary Exit Scheme, which is expected to cost £27 million. Estimates of the total cost of staff exits are under development. All exit payments will comply with the Civil Service Compensation Scheme. This is a long term investment as part of this government's commitment to reshape the way the British state delivers for and serves working people
These staff exits are separate to c.900 people who have moved out of the department through machinery of government changes. This includes the transfer of the Government Digital Service to DSIT to create the digital centre of government.
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The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
