{"id":380668,"date":"2026-01-20T17:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380668\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T17:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T17:23:07","slug":"starmers-chief-secretary-reveals-plans-to-bust-the-sludge-in-whitehall-darren-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/380668\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer\u2019s chief secretary reveals plans to bust \u2018the sludge\u2019 in Whitehall | Darren Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer\u2019s chief secretary, Darren Jones<\/a>, says he is going to bust \u201cthe sludge\u201d in Whitehall by bringing in risk-taking taskforces to deal with problems, and providing the ability to sack senior civil servants who do not deliver.<\/p>\n

Jones, the MP for Bristol North West, said civil servants should feel \u201cjeopardy\u201d if they were underperforming, highlighting that only seven out of 7,000 senior civil servants were on improvement plans.<\/p>\n

As part of plans to \u201crewire\u201d Whitehall, he said big bonuses would in future be reserved for those who showed exceptional achievement. Key performance indicators for senior officials would be set by ministers and those civil servants not meeting expectations would be \u201cshown the door\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead of the sideways shimmy to another team or department if you fail to perform, I\u2019m afraid you will be sacked,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cthe doers, not the talkers\u201d would be in line for promotion.<\/p>\n

Jones outlined the plans during a keynote speech at the What3Words tech company in west London on Tuesday, standing in front of a neon \u201cmove fast, fix things\u201d slogan, as he argued the British state was \u201cbroken\u201d and needed a complete digital transformation.<\/p>\n

He said small taskforces would be set up to deal with specific problems, with cabinet ministers bidding for extra help in their departments.<\/p>\n

These units would be subject to the \u201ctwo pizza\u201d test, which is a theory from startups that any team that cannot share two pizzas is too big and unwieldy to be agile.<\/p>\n

He said many brilliant civil servants were as frustrated as he was about the bureaucracy and slow pace in Whitehall<\/a>, and were keen for change.<\/p>\n

Jones giving his keynote speech at the What3Words headquarters in west London. Photograph: Jonathan Brady\/PA<\/p>\n

Jones said he could not yet say which specific problems needed fixing, but earlier in his speech he highlighted childcare policy and the management of driving tests and licences as two areas that needed improvement.<\/p>\n

The cabinet minister acknowledged that many previous governments had tried to make Whitehall more productive and efficient without huge success.<\/p>\n

This time would be different, he said, as he would try to inject more competition into the civil service at the same time as improving the experience of the public when it interacted with the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe public rightly ask: \u2018If you can bank and shop online in a quick and convenient way, then why can\u2019t it be done for public services too?\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Jones said one part of the \u201csludge busting\u201d would be carried out by Richard Hermer, the attorney general, alongside Nick Thomas-Symonds, a Cabinet Office minister, who will look at obstacles to getting things done in legislation, regulations and processes.<\/p>\n

He said the government would strip out some of the extra checks and consultations on new policy and delivery, giving the example of an HMRC pilot where a 40-step process was reduced to two layers of approvals.<\/p>\n

At the event, Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union, pressed Jones on \u201cwhether the government can convince civil servants, who have too often been scapegoated by politicians<\/a>, to take risks without knowing they won\u2019t get quickly blamed by ministers when those risks don\u2019t work out\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jones said he was comfortable with a greater degree of risk-taking in order to increase the productivity.<\/p>\n

Mike Clancy, the general secretary of the Prospect union, said civil servants were eager to support changes \u201cif these are done properly\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are already thousands of \u2018doers\u2019 in government, particularly Prospect members, who have specialist in-demand skills in areas like science, data, procurement and project management. These people are frequently underpaid, undervalued and often work outside Whitehall in areas vital to on-the-ground delivery,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA series of government reports have recommended reforming the pay system to provide the flexibility to recruit and retain key specialists in the civil service. If the government wants a more agile and productive state, this is the place to start.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer\u2019s chief secretary, Darren Jones, says he is going to bust \u201cthe sludge\u201d in Whitehall by bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-380668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}