Jane Dudman: Has the price of civil service reform been too high?

Jane Dudman assesses the state of Whitehall as it prepares for a new government. The December 2014 ONS figures show that there were 405,400 posts in the civil service, but “as the Institute for Government has point out”, it isn’t the 23% reduction that the Civil Service Reform Plan forecast back in 2012. To achieve that, she writes that another 25,000 staff would have to go.