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The UK government has unveiled plans to move 12,000 civil service jobs out of London and close 11 offices in the capital by 2030.
Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, on Wednesday set out proposals to relocate the roles to 13 cities and towns across the UK, including to a new digital and AI campus in Manchester and an energy hub in Aberdeen.
Birmingham, Leeds, Cardiff, Glasgow, Newcastle and Tyneside, Sheffield, Bristol, Edinburgh, Belfast and York are also set to benefit from the planned job relocations.
The blueprint builds on a programme launched by the previous Conservative government, which shifted 18,000 civil service roles out of London under its “levelling up” agenda to address regional inequality.
The Tories established a Treasury campus in Darlington, North East of England, now populated by more than 1,000 officials and home to one of the department’s two deputy permanent secretaries.
The Labour administration will place a fresh emphasis on relocating prestigious policy roles, setting a target of 50 per cent of senior civil servants being based outside the capital by the end of the decade.
The programme dovetails with a new government apprenticeship scheme launching later this year that will welcome school leavers into the civil service, offering a route to reach its highest levels without having to work in Whitehall.
Meanwhile, a new secondment scheme will place civil servants with councils in a bid to develop deeper links between central and local government.
“We are taking more decision-making out of Whitehall and moving it closer to communities all across the UK,” said McFadden, who has tasked all departments with relocating roles as part of the spending review that is set to conclude next month.
He added that moving thousands of civil service roles “will not only save taxpayers money”, but also “make this government one that better reflects the country it serves” and “support economic growth throughout the country”.
The 12,000 full-time-equivalent roles set to be moved out of London amount to 13 per cent of the civil service workforce in the city.
The proposal is part of the Labour administration’s wider “plan for change”, which involves rewiring the state in order to deliver its five core missions for government: growing the economy, improving the NHS, tackling crime, turbocharging the green transition, and removing barriers to opportunity.
McFadden is aiming to achieve savings of about £94mn a year by closing almost a dozen government offices in the capital, including one at 102 Petty France, which accommodates 7,000 full-time equivalent staff.
Trade unions cautiously welcomed the plans but urged the government to clarify the details of the office closures in London quickly. Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said the announcement would spark “uncertainty” for thousands of officials.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of Prospect, the second-biggest union in the civil service, said the relocation programme was “encouraging” but added that he wanted to see further details of ministers’ review of arm’s-length bodies, which is likely to result in significant civil servant job losses.
Manchester, which already houses a critical GCHQ base and is a secondary hub for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, plus the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is in line to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the job relocation programme.
