The government wants to move 22,000 civil servants out of central London by 2030 to help ensure “government will make decisions differently in future”, the chancellor revealed in today's Budget.
In his speech to MPs, Rishi Sunak set out the plan to relocate jobs, beginning with the creation of an economic campus in the north of England. It will be staffed by around 750 officials by departments including the Treasury, the Department for International Trade, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and the Ministry of Housing, Communicates and Local Government, he said.
The Budget document confirmed the target, but did not indicate where the campus will be located.
RELATED CONTENT
Sunak said the move would support the government's efforts to "level up" different areas of the country to ensure economic growth and job opportunities are more evenly distributed.
"While talent is evenly spread, opportunity is not and we will fix that," he said.
According to the document, the “vast majority” of the 22,000 roles being moved from Whitehall would move out of the capital to other regions and nations of the UK.
“This will take place over the next decade via the Cabinet Office and its Places for Growth programme,” it said.
The Cabinet Office revealed last month that departments were working with the Places for Growth team on plans to move more civil service jobs out of London as part of the Spending Review. The chancellor today confirmed the review will conclude in July.
However, today’s announcement is the first time the government has set a concrete target number for relocations since the revised Government Estates Strategy in July 2018 pledged to move “thousands” of public servants out of London by 2030.
The PfG programme “has been working with all departments to use the next Spending Review to drive location and workforce planning in core departments, their arm’s-length bodies and the government functions”, according to last month's update on the government’s estate strategy.
The strategy's initial focus has been on public bodies, with a pledge to host agencies created as a result of Brexit outside the capital, the annual update said. It indicated the next steps would focus on the civil service itself, as confirmed by Sunak today.
To date, the PfG programme “has been driven by workforce planning and a place-based approach to determining destination locations”, according to the Cabinet Office.
“This involves identifying the roles suitable for relocation and matching those roles to labour markets in our strategic locations. This allows the civil service to recruit in places across the whole of the UK that have the skills to enable organisations and cities to flourish.”
The government is already creating a number of government hubs across the country where civil servants will be co-located. The scheme, which has been led by HM Revenue and Customs plans to reduce its number of offices, now has hubs either open or planned in locations including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Belfast, Nottingham, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol.