Downing Street Says » Civil Service Bureacracy

» Monday, January 17, 2005

Civil Service Bureacracy

Asked about the claim by the Conservative Party that there were 180,000 bureaucrats in the NHS and asked if they were all necessary, the PMOS said that he would not comment on what the Opposition said. However the Government had previously announced the outcome of the Gershon review which recommended a reduction of 84,000 public administration civil service posts by 2007/8, 13,500 of which would be redeployed to the front line. In terms of front line increases then yes there were 77,500 more nurses as well as 19,000 more doctors. The Government clearly believed that those numbers were needed and had led to an improvement in the Health Service. Asked about bureaucratic jobs in particular, the PMOS said that as always in these matters it depended on what you termed a bureaucrat. By some accounting mechanisms cleaning staff could be counted as bureaucrats. Clearly they weren’t and were essential to the working of an efficient and effective health service. The Civil Service was still nearly 17,000 lower than it was 10 years ago, so the perception that there was an increase in the size of civil service was not born out by the facts.

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