Downing Street has rejected characterisations of its plans to reform the Civil Service as “taking a chainsaw to the system”.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised a series of sweeping reforms to the machinery of Government, promising in a joint message with the country’s most senior civil servant to bring about a “rewiring of the British state”.
The reforms will mean the Civil Service becoming smaller, with more of the remaining jobs moving outside of London.
Ministers are said to have been interested in proposals to reshape the state put forward by the influential Labour Together think tank – dubbed “Project Chainsaw”, according to the Guardian newspaper.
Elon Musk receives a chainsaw from Argentina’s President Javier Milei (Jose Luis Magana/AP)
The name is an apparent reference to Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw to symbolise the work of his “Department of Government Efficiency”, a Trump administration programme aimed at cutting US federal government spending.
Mr Musk borrowed the motif from Javier Milei, the right-wing libertarian president of Argentina, who similarly wielded a chainsaw during his election campaign to express his desire to cut regulation and drastically reduce the size of the South American country’s state.
The Prime Minister’s press secretary hit back at claims the Government’s project had been dubbed “Operation Chainsaw”.
She told reporters: “We reject that juvenile characterisation. As the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden) set out this weekend, it is not about slashing the state, it is about reshaping the state so it works for working people.”
Sir Keir’s official spokesman meanwhile said: “We are not taking an ideological approach to this. There is no approach here where we are taking a chainsaw to the system.
“The focus that we are taking is making the state more effective, we are making the state more agile in a way that delivers for working people.
“Part of that will obviously mean that the state must be delivering value for money for people and… that will be at the heart of the spending review, but also we want to see a state that is more effective at delivering for people.”
In a message to civil servants circulated earlier this week, the Prime Minister and cabinet secretary Sir Chris Wormald said the Civil Service must be “more agile, mission-focused and more productive”.
The message is an attempt to win support from civil servants for a programme which will see radical changes to their roles and potential job losses.
As part of the reforms, the Government has vowed that one in 10 civil servants will be employed in a digital or data role by 2030.
Unions have pushed back against the announcement, with the Prospect union insisting ministers must “end the tradition of treating the civil service as a political punchbag”.