The CIPD has estimated that the UK should be braced for a 10% cull in the public sector workforce in the lifetime of the next government – whoever wins the May 6 General Election.
 

The cut would bring the current 5.8 million roster of such jobs down by at least 500,000, says the CIPD (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development) in a new study.

The group says what none of the main political parties’ manifestos do; any serious attempt to reduce the UK’s national overdraft, which now stands at 80% of GDP, can only be done by tackling ‘inefficiency’ – jobs will have to go, too.

The CIPD also warned the imminent post election public spending squeeze would be “far greater” than any of the main political parties is prepared to admit.

The organisations’ chief economic adviser John Philpott has even gone so far as to say it is "misleading" to suggest that the job losses could be avoided by a combination of pay cuts or short-time working, as private sector experience shows it is "not an effective response where long-term structural change is involved".

"An economy with almost 30 million people in work and in which tens of thousands of jobs are lost and created every year should be able to cope with a period of large scale public sector downsizing without this resulting in higher unemployment,” he said – but that even so, “a favourable outcome depends on a return to health of the wider economy and increased demand for labour from the private sector”.

The CIPD said it supported all the political parties in their enthusiasm for generating jobs in the low carbon, digital and creative sectors, but added that the number of jobs which could be created was "purely speculative”.

But the study also agrees with the government’s charge that Tory plans for immediate cuts could hamper short-term prospects of recovery: “We are concerned that the Conservative plan to push ahead immediately with £6 billion of spending cuts would threaten the economic recovery and increase the risk of higher unemployment.”

The conclusion reached by the CIPD’s survey has already been questioned. “Regardless of who wins the General Election, the new Government will live and die by its efficiency savings – but this doesn’t have to mean job cuts, and certainly not to the level anticipated by the CIPD. From next month, public sector bosses will need to find ways to cut costs quickly, and make a significant impact on undoubtedly aggressive targets,” said Dave Proctor, business development director at HR IT vendor, NorthgateArinso.

“We’re expecting to see a spike in demand for HR outsourcing services as a direct result of this. Outsourcing can be a very efficient way of saving money, and it doesn’t have to be synonymous with redundancy. Employees working in the HR team may be moved across to the outsourcing supplier through a ‘TUPE’ process, to work for them.”

He added: “The reality is that these questions are only now being taken seriously. Outsourcing, not redundancy, is going to be key to the success of any efficiency measures, whoever finally gets the keys to Number 10."

Chris Phillips, vice president, international marketing for Taleo, suggested that better talent management would help the public sector cope with cuts, saying: “There are real opportunities for a future government to reduce costs by improving the efficiency of public sector recruitment and people management functions."

He continued: "With a period of drastic organisational change ahead, public sector organisations need to ensure that they are able to deploy existing skills effectively and re-align the workforce as required. A key part of this is having the necessary visibility into the workforce to manage those processes."

Chris concluded: "With the right insight into each employee’s skills and experiences, organisations can move talent internally to the departments where they are needed most or identify potential skills gaps. Moving staff internally can reduce disruption to frontline services by moving staff with transferable skills to other areas of the organisation, where greater resource might be required. This will also help to minimise costs by reducing the need to bring in contract workers to provide short-term support or expertise.”