Last month Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden announced with much fanfare that 400,000 civil servants would be trained to use the government’s AI tool ‘Humphrey’ this year. McFadden informed all civil servants in England and Wales that the training would begin in Autumn. Just seven weeks away…
Guido’s FOI Unit thought to check in on how the development of the training programme for hundreds of thousands of mandarins was getting along. It appears the training launch might be delayed…
The Cabinet Office said it was still “co-designing with departments the AI training that will be rolled out to civil servants later this year”, adding that “final costs are unknown as the course is still under development, and will depend on the resources used.” The Cabinet office also “did not hold” information on how much time civil servants will spend on the training programme. Shame the government doesn’t have its ‘progress dashboards’ up and running to track this…
With 14 days to go until Starmer’s one-year anniversary in Downing Street there is chaos inside government. Are co-conspirators surprised?
Starmer’s initiation of “Phase Two” some weeks ago has done nothing to address the toxic relations among key officials. Guido hears from internal sources that the two powerhouses of government – No10 and the Cabinet Office – are in disarray. There is criticism of Starmer’s Principal Private Secretary Nin Pandit, who one Downing Street source says is “hopeless and seems to dislike everyone and everything with no ability to fix things.” Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney and his deputy Vidhya Alakeson are close and have so far failed to begin turning things around for Starmer…
The Cabinet Office is worse according to high-level sources, one of whom describes it as a “sh*tshow.” Chris Wormald – a Civil Service lifer who Starmer appointed Cabinet Secretary in December to the dismay of more ambitious political staff – has so far disappointed and “might as well not be there.” So too has Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little, who one source says “seems to promise the earth all the time but can’t deliver.” Guido hears the Mission Delivery Unit, which is made up of circa 30 staff reporting primarily to Starmer and Pat McFadden, is chaotic and failing to perform according to expectations. Labour has all but hidden the missions from their own website…
Characters currently keeping the department afloat are said to be Director General Matt Collins, Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Black, and Propriety and Constitution Director Darren Tierney. Guido hears all three of them are eyeing an exit. Good luck to the rest…
Poor communications work has too begun to sour relations with political journalists – far earlier than usual in the cycle. Quite the job to get done in just one year…
Latest quarterly civil service headcount figures reveal that there are now 550,000 pen-pushers as of March 2025, the highest in nearly 20 years under blob-lover Tony Blair in 2006. And 4,000 more since Labour came into power…
That’s also a 1% increase on March last year. Co-conspirators will remember the song and dance Labour made when they announced 1,200 redundancies in the Cabinet Office – though that’s just a quarter of how much the headcount has gone up by since Starmer took the keys to Downing Street. Labour’s promise to cut back the blob proving to be more hot air when they’re on track to hire civil servants more than they’re firing…
Back when the government told civil servants to come into the office it also said departments would begin to monitor the computer use of staff who worked from home to see if they were actually working. Labour said it would continue with the 60% office mandate when it came in. No sign any of work from home accountability taking place…
Guido’s FOI unit asked the Department of Science what systems it has deployed in the last year and a half to monitor the on-screen activity of staff – it has deployed none. The unit also asked DSIT for any reports or disciplinary notifications in relation to civil servants use of at-home screen time in that period – nothing. The taxpayer is footing the bill for thousands of pounds worth of work from home equipment including “footrests,” “noise dampeners,” chairs, and monitor risers. Not that departments care what their staff are actually doing when they’re at home…
Next week is the NHS’ “Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week.” Founded thirteen years ago by the NHS Confederation and NHS Employers to lecture staff on crucial diversity matters…
Over at woke-obsessed healthcare regulator the Care Quality Commission there is a packed schedule. Their Deputy “Equity and Diversity Director” says: “For CQC, it’s an ideal opportunity to reflect on equality and rights for all the sectors we regulate, as well as for ourselves as an organisation. We do this by focusing on 4 key areas:
The week will feature “lively panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and a mix of personal and professional insights from keynote internal and external guest speakers.” Here they are:
Note how all events are firmly lodged inside working hours. If Streeting was serious about cutting waste this would be a prime target…
Civil service unions are gearing up for battle as Labour’s fiscal squeeze threatens job cuts in Whitehall. Rachel Reeves is scrambling to stick to her self-imposed fiscal rules in Wednesday’s Spring Statement (definitely not an emergency budget). The axe is swinging towards the civil service…
The Cabinet Office’s Pat McFadden is writing to departments this week ordering them to slash administrative budgets by 15%, a move designed to save £2.2 billion a year by 2029-30. Reeves took to the Sunday shows, claiming 10,000 pen-pushers will be culled. Though now ministers are reportedly quietly drawing up plans to sack 50,000 civil servants. Co-conspirators will remember the union backlash when ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced plans to cut the blob by 66,000 in 2023…
Unsurprisingly, the unions are livid. PCS union boss Fran Heathcote fumed: “The impact of making cuts will not only disadvantage our members but the public we serve and the services they rely on. We’ve seen this before under Gordon Brown- cutting backroom staff led to chaos. Cuts plucked out of the air in order to make it sound like an efficiency they will meet with a lot of opposition”. FDA general secretary Dave Penman told ITV: “We’re talking about something close to 10% of the entire civil service salary bill over the next three to four years. The Civil Service is about half a million strong—so up to 50,000 jobs could go.” That number is now being briefed by the government…
Meanwhile, Mike Clancy, boss of the Prospect union, warned that ministers must avoid turning budget cuts into an “arbitrary” civil service headcount reduction. He pointed to Reeves’ pledge of a “zero-based review of spending” saying it must include a “realistic” look at what the government won’t be able to do after these cuts. Another grovelling letter from Starmer to civil servants to stave off more strikes incoming?
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”