ACTION is needed to stop the number of civil servants growing “inexorably”, according to Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The GB News presenter and former Business Secretary was responding to reports that the number of civil servants earning over £100,000 a year has nearly doubled since 2016.
He told GB News: “When I was minister for government efficiency working closely with Steve Barclay, who’s now Health Secretary, we had a plan to reduce the civil service by 91,000 to get it back to 2015-16 levels.
“If you have the pressure to reduce, then actually you do begin to bring things down. If you don’t have that pressure, it just grows like Topsy.
“And that’s the problem at the moment. No one’s trying to reduce it, and therefore it just inexorably grows and that’s bad news for taxpayers.”
In a discussion with Martin Daubney and Emily Carver, he said the key was in the use of technology: “DVLA, interestingly, has done really well on that. So if you’re applying for anything from DVLA, that doesn’t require human intervention and is done in an automated way.
“The turnarounds are really very quick. So, it’s using technology, using AI, it’s getting rid of middle management and having a leaner and fitter Civil Service.
“Oddly, the one thing I wouldn’t complain about is some of the rises in salaries. If we can get to a smaller Civil Service, then having a better paid one is perfectly reasonable.
“Unfortunately, at the moment we’re getting a better paid and bigger civil service, which is the worst of all worlds.”
He added: “There’s a lot in some of the constitutional changes that were made that has taken power away from elected people , rom ministers and given it to the unelected, giving it to people in arm’s length bodies, which are not under direct ministerial control and have been some of the biggest areas of growth.
“They run, essentially, independently of government and are not politically controlled by the government of the day and have their own views about things. I’m looking at Natural England and bodies like that that seem to run an agenda entirely of their own.”
