More than 500 civil servants are reportedly set to leave the Department of Health as the ministry presses ahead with cuts agreed at the 2015 Spending Review.
Under the settlement the DH agreed with the Treasury in 2015, the department is looking to make cuts to its administrative spending of 30% by 2019-20.
In response, the DH announced in February last year that it would shrink its London estate, moving from three sites to just one – at 39 Victoria Street in Westminster – and said it would cut the number of non-senior staff at the organisation from 1,800 to 1,200-1,300 by April of this year.
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Trade title Health Service Journal reported this week that 538 civil servants are now set to leave DH under the voluntary exit scheme kicked off last year, with the number of deputy directors also set to fall from 116 to 80.
At the time of publication, the Department of Health had not responded to CSW's request for comment on either the numbers reported by HSJ or the timeframe for the move to Victoria Street.
Late last year, the civil service-wide People Service revealed a sharp drop in morale at the Department of Health, with the DH overtaking HM Revenue and Customs as Whitehall’s least “engaged” workforce. Officials said the impact of the restructuring was likely to have contributed to that fall.