Churn in the UK’s civil service is at its highest level since 2010 aside from its post-pandemic peak, with almost 12% of Whitehall staff changing department or leaving the government workforce in the year to the end of March, according to an analysis.
The Institute for Government’s annual Whitehall monitor found there had been a drop since 2022 when, after the worst of the Covid crisis, 13.6% of civil servants left their jobs – but it remained higher than at any point since the Conservatives took power 14 years ago.
Dr Hannah White, the director of the IFG, said in the report that real-terms pay cuts, onerous recruitment processes and low staff morale were all factors contributing to the situation.
The proportion of staff leaving the civil service altogether remained at its post-pandemic peak of 9%.
Turnover was highest in the centre of government, at 26.2% in the Treasury and 23.7% in the Cabinet Office.
In the introduction to the report, White said: “Staff turnover fell from its immediate post-pandemic peak but remains too high and continues to harm institutional memory. Further real-terms pay cuts continue to hinder the civil service’s ability to attract and retain top talent, as do slow and onerous processes for recruiting from outside government. A worrying fall in staff morale has raised questions about how the institution is led.”
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, has pledged to address civil service churn, believing it is damaging the operation of government. Advised by the former senior civil servant Sue Gray, who is Starmer’s chief of staff, the party has been considering how to generate more stability within the civil service.
Some of the possible solutions include better pay progression and incentives for remaining in certain roles, and using minimum terms of service for some jobs to prevent civil servants moving to a new Whitehall role before completing their term.
Rhys Clyne, one of the report’s authors, said churn was a serious and longstanding problem in the civil service, and its high level may be related partly to dissatisfaction with pay and levels of morale.
“It’s an acute issue,” he said. “There are a range of structural and cultural factors at play. One is the consequence of pay structures, so if people can’t progress and become more senior in a role over time then that creates incentives for staff to move roles more quickly.
“There’s also perceptions about how civil servants progress in their careers. Particularly in policy careers, it’s encouraged that officials move roles to get different experiences quickly and that’s seen as the way that gets on. That contributes to churn at the expense of the development of subject area expertise.”
Clyne added: “Satisfaction with pay is particularly low at the moment and real-term pay cuts accumulating over time is a real factor. Despite the fact that pay fell less this year than last year, we are still looking at now in the region of 10% to 26% real-terms pay cuts since 2010 and that’s only getting worse.”
In its report, the IFG said the statistics were an underestimate of churn because they did not include moves within government departments.
“This is a problem for the civil service because high turnover damages productivity, undermines subject knowledge and expertise, disrupts projects and increases the resources required for recruitment and training. This is a particular concern, given declining morale among civil servants,” the report said.
“Demotivated civil servants are more likely to be open to new and often higher paid employment options outside the service – something that should be seen as a red flag for civil service leaders aiming to retain top talent.”
Reported morale fell for a second year running, and less than a third of civil servants reported being satisfied with their pay – a nine percentage point drop from last year.
