Politics Home | If Labour Doesn’t Revamp The Civil Service, Reform UK Will Dismantle It, Warns Hermer

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Writing for The House on Thursday, Hermer, a close ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said: “We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it.

“Those who have a vested interest in talking down the state’s ability to change people’s lives for the better, who want to tear away safeguards for working people.”

The Attorney General’s warning comes after the Labour government on Thursday announced a series of reforms designed to speed up government decision-making and tackle what it described as a “consultation culture” in Whitehall. 

In addition to reducing the number of consultations, the government will use AI to identify red tape, as well as streamline the ‘write-round’ process, which ministers use to reach collective decisions. PoliticsHome revealed in November that write-rounds, which involve written correspondence between ministers, were frustrating government figures, who felt that the procedure was creating unnecessary delays. 

Ministers will also implement a new accountability framework for permanent secretaries to ensure departments are focused on delivering the Prime Minister’s priorities.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been highly critical of the civil service, arguing that it is too large and not fit for purpose.

The Observer recently reported that the party plans to sack the current cohort of permanent secretaries, who lead departments, and replace them in some cases with outsider political appointees. The newspaper reported a senior Reform figure as pointing to Donald Trump’s current administration as Farage’s inspiration.

While work on the reforms announced today started months ago, government sources told PoliticsHome that Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo had injected a sense of urgency. Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds is also heavily involved in the work.

In his piece for The House, Hermer said that 122 consultations had been launched on the government website since January, the equivalent of two a day.

“Consultations are vital when they are genuine exercises in engagement: testing assumptions, gathering evidence, shaping policy. At their best, they save the public purse, but at their worst, deployed without thought or proportionality, they cease to be tools of democracy and instead become obstacles to it,” the Attorney General wrote.

Pointing to a “never-ending list” of consultations currently on GOV.UK, he said that while many were “a great way to gather feedback and the views of the public,” some are “more questionable”.

“Of good intentions, probably sound individual decisions, spiralling into something else.

“Layers of bureaucracy that government after government have allowed to accumulate, each intended to safeguard fairness, yet instead creating a jungle of delay, confusion, and frustration.”

He said that the civil service “is full of dynamic, committed people driven by a deep sense of public service” who are being “slowly suffocated by the system around them”.

“The state must not be slowed by its own procedures. Its purpose is to make decisions that matter for the public we serve,” the cabinet minister wrote.

“If trust depends on delivery, and delivery depends on action, then our priority is clear:

cut through the unnecessary thickets, restore the capacity to act, and ensure the state can uphold principle without suffocating under its own processes.”