Attempts to move civil servants out of London have stalled

A new report by the Onward think tank has claimed that ministers’ efforts to relocate large numbers of civil servants out of London are going backwards.

Research has found that new posts in the capital have grown at twice the rate of other regions since a review of government buildings announced in 2018, meaning that the senior civil service remains ’particularly London-centric’.

The government plans to shift 22,000 jobs out of London by 2030. The push to relocate civil servants has received renewed focus in recent years, as part of the government's Levelling Up agenda. It is considered that moving civil servants to regions outside London could improve growth and decision-making.

But the Onward report said that emergency recruitment to respond to Brexit and the Covid pandemic had concentrated the workforce in London. Since 2018 the number of jobs based in the capital had grown by 22 per cent, compared to 11 per cent in other areas of the UK.

The analysis also found that: more than nine in 10 civil servants in the Treasury and business and culture departments were based in London; nearly two-thirds of senior civil servants were based in London, up from 60 per cent in 2015; and, since 2006, the overall civil servant headcount had risen by 50 per cent in London, compared to three per cent as a whole.

The report recommends that the government publish league tables setting out progress towards reaching their own targets, and that departments falling short should adopt a ‘one-in, two-out rule’.