The former Business Secretary told GB News: “I was the minister for government efficiency and when I was first appointed and I got very excited because the permanent secretary came to see me and said the target was to get the levels of staffing down to 1920 levels. And I thought, ‘marvellous, that will be a few thousand or so’.
“He meant, of course, 2019/2020. But we were aiming for a reduction of 91,000 people and we could have done that actually by natural wastage, by the number of people who retire each year, who resign, who go on to other jobs.
“You didn’t need massive swathes being cut through, but you also needed people to turn up for work. And part of the problem is people simply aren’t turning up work.
“When I was doing it for Boris, we had a clear programme of 91,000, not 66,000. We knew how to do it, by not hiring, by working out there are some things you didn’t need to do.
“We had a programme that was about to start. Bits of it were being put into place. And then I’m afraid Rishi Sunak’s government wasn’t interested for about a year.
“A year was wasted doing nothing, and now we’re back to the year of wasting.
“In a year’s time, the Government will see the sums don’t add up and it will say we have a big drive to cut back the Civil Service, and they won’t do anything.
“The chance to do it was in 2022 and we bungled it, I’m afraid.”
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