The number of staff leaving the civil service fell last year for the first time in three years, new research shows.
In 2023-24, 7.5% of officials left government, down from around 8.9% the year before, the Institute for Government’s annual Whitehall Monitor report shows. The slight drop follows a steady increase since 2017-18 in the proportion of civil servants who have left – interrupted by a sharp drop in 2020-21, when Covid restrictions were in place affecting the labour market across the UK.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that at least some of the recent reduction was related to the pay deal put forward in June 2023, according to the report.
But despite this “welcome” downturn, the IfG noted that there was a large increase in moves between departments, likely caused by machinery of government changes including the creation of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Department for Business and Trade in 2023, which pushed up the overall rate of churn.
A record high of 5.2% of officials underwent internal transfers, putting overall churn at 12.7% – the second-highest rate recorded in the period covered in the Whitehall Monitor report, which began in 2010-11. Turnover was only higher in 2021-22, the year after most Covid restrictions were lifted, at 13.6%, according to the Office for National Statistics figures the IfG analysed.
“Importantly, these figures do not account for the regular moves that officials make within the same department, meaning they significantly underestimate the true level of turnover,” the report says.
“Talented people are still cycling through jobs too quickly, failing to develop sufficient expertise to do them to the best of their ability,” it warns.
And there is some indication that turnover is even higher in the senior civil service, according to the report. It notes that Cabinet Office estimates published by the Senior Salaries Review Body suggest around a third of senior civil servants left or moved roles in 2022-23 – a much higher proportion than across the whole of the civil service that year.
“This proportion has been steadily increasing since the pandemic, with significant implications for institutional memory, effectiveness and delivery across Whitehall,” the IfG report says.
DSIT grew while DCMS shrank
The Whitehall Monitor report also analysed how staffing numbers have changed in each department between Q4 of 2023 and Q4 of 2024 – providing more up-to-date figures than those on overall turnover.
DSIT had the biggest proportional increase of any department between Q4 of 2023 and Q4 of 2024, with 1,550 extra staff growing its total headcount by nearly 30%. Most of this change is accounted for by 810 staff moving from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in early 2024, and a further 70 officials who moved from the Cabinet Office at the end of 2023.
DESNZ and the Home Office both grew by more than 10%, gaining 735 and 5,775 staff respectively.
The Department for Work and Pensions gained the most staff by sheer numbers – 6,445 – but this represented a much smaller proportional increase given the size of the department.
DCMS lost the biggest proportion of staff, mostly to DSIT, with the 770 officials who left the department accounting for more than a quarter of its headcount. However, the IfG report noted that with the DSIT move excluded, the department grew slightly between Q3 2023 and Q3 2024.
Three other departments lost a small proportion of their staff: the Treasury, which lost 65; the Ministry of Defence – which froze recruitment in summer 2023 and then announced plans to cut its civilian workforce by around 10% in October – lost 1,040; and HM Revenue and Customs lost 690.
The report also notes that the overall civil service headcount continues to rise – and has done so in all but one quarter since the EU referendum in 2016.
While much of the growth has been “explicable and necessary”, mostly due to Brexit and the pandemic, the report says, the expansion has continued “without a comprehensive plan or rationale”.
“More concerning is that it has been contrary to the explicit intentions of ministers. This unplanned growth represents a continued failure by both ministers and Whitehall leaders to properly plan and manage the civil service workforce,” it adds.
The report also notes that morale has dropped slightly, although satisfaction with pay has improved, as CSW reported last year.
Average pay increased in real terms in 2024 (2023-24 year), after falling in both of the previous years, and median pay almost returned to its 2010 level – although this was highly variable across grades, and real-terms pay at SCS level was 24% lower in 2024 than in 2010.
The report says: "Officials’ increasingly negative views about their leadership and how change is managed shows that the civil service needs an injection of energy and direction."
The headline engagement figure in the 2023 Civil Service People Survey – the most recent year for which figures are available – fell for the third consecutive year, following a near decade-long trend of rising morale
"However... this has only translated into minimal increases in the proportions of officials intending to leave their organisation as soon as possible or within 12 months," the report says.