Departments will be required to match-fund the government’s £150m central pot for voluntary redundancy schemes, it has emerged.
The chancellor announced a new £3.25bn transformation fund at the Spring Statement, making £250m available in 2025-26 and allocating £150m of it to voluntary exit schemes to reduce the size of the civil service.
Asked in a parliamentary written question by Conservative MP Luke Evans which departments will benefit from the cash pool, Jones said departments will bid for the £150m pot, and that this will be “match-funded by a further £150m from departments”.
He said this means “the exact details of which departments will benefit from this and how this will be spent is not yet known”.
The funding aims to help departments to reduce administration costs by 15% by the end of the decade.
Jones said the exit schemes that the pot will fund “will enable delivery of leaner, smarter, more efficient government, whilst delivering savings over the medium term”.
The Cabinet Office has already accepted 500 voluntary exit scheme applications as part of its redundancy scheme, which was launched in December.