Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what assessment he has made of the effect of civil service redundancies in the last 12 months on the effectiveness of departments' work.

To remain the best in the world, the Civil Service needs to respond to both the challenges and opportunities of our times.The Civil Service continues to require new and different skills to respond to the fiscal environment, global competition and changes in technology, whilst at the same time delivering better services more efficiently: in short, doing more for less.

The size of the Civil Service has already reduced by 20% since March 2010 and has helped save taxpayers £2.8bn over the last Parliament. Despite this reduction in numbers, employee engagement rates were higher in 2015 than in 2010 and departments have successfully maintained delivery of our public services.