Question to the Ministry of Defence:

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2024 to Question 22255 on Strategic Command: Vacancies, when he plans to complete the review into his Department's civil service workforce requirement.

Work is ongoing following the Chancellor’s announcement in the Autumn statement requiring Departments to cap Civil Service headcount and then reduce to 2019 levels.

By 2028, we need a refocused Civil Service workforce which will undertake prioritised projects through agile, skilled, and right sized teams who are delivering ‘what really matters’. We will create an environment where we are empowered, included, and recognised for who we are and what we do.

Defence Design is driving system change to unlock a more effective and productive environment which in turn will enable this change in the workforce.

Our civil servants play an essential role in delivering Defence outcomes and we hope that by utilising opportunities for process redesign, digitisation, corporate service modernisation and prioritisation that we can achieve better outcomes and accelerate the changes to our ways of working which are required to achieve a smaller, more productive and more agile civilian workforce.