#redundancies

[dispatchesfromtheclasswar]

[eaglesnick]

“A mistake that is repeated is a decision" – Anon

Reform deputy leader Richard Tice has argued that “hundreds of thousands” of people could lose their jobs as a result of Labour’s “appalling” budget." (LBC, 06/12/14).

It is therefore comforting that Nigel Farage and several former Conservative MPs who have since joined Reform UK present themselves as concerned about rising employment levels. However, this concern does not appear to extend to workers in local government or the civil service.

Danny Kruger, a former Conservative MP who has publicly defended austerity policies, has stated that Reform UK intends to reduce the Whitehall civil service by approximately 13 per cent.

.“Reform UK pledges to cut 68,500 civil service jobs” (Financial Times, 15/12/25).

Rather than directing any savings from these reductions toward improving public services such as the NHS or education, Reform UK proposes to increase the bonus pool for “high‑achieving” civil servants from £100 million to £500 million.

In addition to cuts within Whitehall, Reform UK has indicated the intention to reduce staffing levels in local authorities. Local government in England and Wales employs nearly two million people. Applying a 13 per cent reduction to this workforce would imply approximately 260,000 redundancies. When combined with the proposed civil service cuts, the total number of job losses would rise to around 328,500.

During the peak period of Conservative austerity, between 2010 and 2016, the civil service workforce declined from roughly 470,000 to 384,000—a reduction of about 86,000 posts. The consequences of those cuts are well documented.

HMRC experienced reduced efficiency, longer waiting times, and increased error rates, resulting in significant losses or delays in revenue collection. The Department for Work and Pensions faced growing delays in processing claims, particularly affecting vulnerable groups such as disabled claimants. The Home Office saw a substantial increase in asylum case backlogs, contributing to the pressures visible today.

Other departments—including those responsible for environmental regulation, health and safety, and local planning—experienced staffing reductions that produced delays and declines in service quality. To compensate for diminished in‑house capacity, outsourcing to private contractors increased, as did expenditure on temporary staff and consultancy services.

A further, less visible consequence was the loss of institutional expertise. Experienced senior staff, technical specialists, and policy experts were made redundant, leading to fewer tax inspections, fewer environmental checks, and reduced court staffing—outcomes associated with lower revenue collection, increased pollution incidents, and longer delays in the justice system.

If these were the demonstrable effects of reducing civil service staffing by 86,000, the implications of a reduction on the scale proposed by Reform UK—potentially exceeding 260,000 posts—will be severe.

Given the significant presence of former Conservative politicians associated with earlier austerity programmes now occupying senior positions within Reform UK, these developments are not unexpected. What is more noteworthy is the increasing number of Reform UK supporters who appear willing to endorse the same actors and policy approaches that have contributed to the socio-economic difficulties they themselves identify and express such angry  frustration about.

[yeltsinsstar]

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSRvVv8c4/

[chaotic-average-child]

run boy run

alt

[victormalonso]

redundancies [no limits to infinity] | © víctor m. alonso

[mickothoughts]

Iwas na tayo sa redundancies ng buhay. Yung mga bagay na lagi nating ginagawa na wala namang impact sa buhay natin. Iwasan na ang magbuhos ng atensyon sa taong hindi ka naman pinahahalagahan. Iwas na sa pagpapanggap na ok lang kahit hindi. Iwas na sa pagso-sorry kung di ka pa siguradong 'di mo na 'yon uulitin. Paikot-ikot lang kase, asa ka ng asa, paulit-ulit. Hanggang sa makita mo na lang ang sarili mo sa kwarto, nagtatanong sa kisame kung bakit hindi ka na lang kaya lumayo at magsimula ng bago. © 06/05/18 | Magbago na tayo

[sataniccapitalist]

Ford to temporarily layoff about 2,000 hourly employees at Michigan

Ford Motor said it would temporarily layoff about 2,000 hourly employees at its Michigan assembly and stamping plants in Wayne, as the factories undergo retooling to build the Ranger pickup trucks and Bronco sport utility vehicles.

[eaglesnick]

“We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” - Peter Mandelson

The other day I made the assertion that when the people of Britain voted for Keir Starmer, what they were really getting was Tony Blaire. To be fair this was partly tongue-in-cheek but having read the Kings Speech setting out the Labour Party's plans to change Britain it is closer to the truth than is comfortable.

The Tony Blaire Institute for Global Change has a paper entitled: The Economic Case for Reimagining the State that was published July 9th, 2024, just five days after the UK elections. Some of the wording in this report is almost identical to some of the wording in the Kings Speech.

Tony Blaire Institute:  “reforming the UK’s antiquated planning system is a high priority that could unlock much needed infrastructure investment and help un-gum the UK’s housing market.”

Kings Speech: “My Ministers will get Britain building, including through planning reform, as they seek to accelerate the delivery of high quality infrastructure and housing."

Tony Blaire: "Normalization of relations with the EU: A full reversal of these losses may be politically unattainable during this Parliament, but there is a path to a better post-Brexit relationship in the coming years"

Kings Speech: My Government will seek to reset the relationship with European partners and work to improve the United Kingdom's trade and investment relationship with the European Union

Tony Blaire: "The new government will need to lean in to support the diffusion of AI-era tech across the economy by adopting a pro-innovation, pro-technology stance, as advocated by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.”

Kings Speech: "It will seek to establish the appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models.”

The Kings Speech is, by necessity, very brief and gives virtually no detail how the government’s aims are to be achieved. We will have to wait and see how much more of Keir Starmer’s vision for the future of Britain mirrors that of Tony Blaire. If Starmer is as closely aligned to Blaire as these comparisons suggest then public sector workers beware.

Blaire places great reliance on the introduction of artificial intelligence to ALL sectors of the economy, but  especially within the public sector. Once introduced Blaire predicts a productivity gain of “one-fifth workforce time”

 Public sector workers, having adopted the new AI and having increased productivity by 20% can then expect the sack.

“If the government chooses to bank these time savings and reduce the size of the workforce, this could result in annual net savings of £10 billion per year by the end of this Parliament and £34 billion per year by the end of the next – enough to pay for the entire defence budget.”

This is the true Blairite mindset. Nothing about sharing the productivity gains made by workers in the form of higher wages, nothing about the redistribution of wealth or tackling income inequality. In Blaire’s Case for Reimagining the State poverty is not mentioned once. Inequality gets one mention but only as a statistic relating to workers forced to use food banks. 

What Blaire and Starmer – like the Conservative Party - appear to have forgotten is that  public services are exactly that –  services.  Yes they need to be efficient and cost effective but NOT to the extent that the service element is lost. The rich can afford to buy service, ordinary working people have to rely upon government for basic services and over the last few years they have been badly let down.  Poor pay, increasing workloads, job insecurity and private sector creep have all contributed to bringing Britain’s public services to the verge of collapse. Let us all hope Starmer and Blaire don’t push them completely over the edge.