Around 300 civil servants in the Department for Transport are expected to leave under the voluntary exit scheme launched by the department in the autumn.
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, told MPs on the Transport Committee this morning that she anticipates “nearly 300 people leaving” via the voluntary redundancy scheme out of the central department’s 3,700-strong workforce.
DfT’s second permanent secretary, Jo Shanmugalingam said the scheme is “part of us beginning to get smaller, and we expect that to continue”.
Asked by Liberal Democrat MP Steff Aquarone what the department’s plan is for staffing levels in light of the upcoming 2025 Spending Review, Alexander said the department is not focused on headcount reductions as this could “result in some perverse incentives”.
“You could reduce the central headcount of the department by paying more consultants, for example, which wouldn't necessarily be the right thing to do, both from the point of view of the public finances or from the point of view of how effective the organisation is operating,” she said.
Alexander also pointed to the 2022 announcement by then-prime minister Boris Johnson that he would reduce the size of the civil service by around 91,000 jobs. “We saw those numbers shoot up by 130,000, so I think focusing on how we spend money more efficiently is right,” she said.
But she added: “Having said all of that, if you look over the last five years, the central department's headcount has gone up by about a third. And I'm not sure whether that is justifiable in the medium to longer term.”
Alexander then mentioned the numbers set to leave under the voluntary exit scheme, and pointed out that the Government Car Service moving over to the Cabinet Office and the creation of Great British Railways will also reduce the size of the department’s central workforce, with the latter seeing some DfT staff move into GBR.
She added that the department is “constantly looking at ways in which we can rewire the state and make it more efficient, but also we need to make sure that we've got the right skills and the right people in the right jobs”.
Shanmugalingan said the focus on cost rather than headcount could also mean more staff coming in through insourcing, and mentioned civil service chief operating officer Cat Little’s recent comments about wanting to replace 7,000 digital contractors and consultants with civil servants.
She also pointed to the department’s efforts to increase the number of driving test examiners to reduce huge waiting times as another example of where efficiency was being sought through increases in staffing levels.
Alexander announced today that the department is attempting to reduce driving test waiting times to seven weeks by summer 2026 through measures including asking back-office DVSA officials who are qualified to examine to return to the front line to provide practical driving tests.
Other measures include: doubling the number of permanent trainers to skill up new driving examiners quickly; reintroducing overtime pay incentives for everyone delivering driving tests; and an accelerated consultation to investigate the potential abuse of the driving test booking system and prevent bots from accessing tests.