Getting to grips with civil service reform | Letters

As a former civil servant, the Labour Together thinktank’s “project chainsaw” sounds depressingly familiar to me (Plan to cut thousands of civil service jobs in radical government shake-up, 11 March). Headcount reductions were very much in vogue in the Thatcher era, when she is said to have remarked that there were too many doctors working in the Department of Health.

Critics thought that her “efficiency cuts” would be better characterised as inefficiency cuts, placing more burden on overstretched staff.

The thinktank, however, may be on the verge of a conceptual breakthrough, as you report that it will be looking at “further planning changes, including how to get a third runway at Heathrow built within the parliament”.

Even William Morris, in his utopian classic News From Nowhere, could only envisage the parliament building converted into a dung market. Either way, could parliamentarians be contemplating turning the chainsaw on themselves, starting with the House of Lords?
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London

The name “operation chainsaw” gives the strongest indication possible of the crass nature of this exercise. The prime minister and his chums have clearly been fed the infants’ business management handbook. No one will cavil that the nation requires effective and efficient government organisations and civil service.

But the government should set out a prioritised action plan that answers three questions: where are we now, where do we want to be, and what resources – human and financial – do we need to get there? It also needs to behave with decency and help redundant employees get jobs elsewhere.
Chris Hodgkins
London

I take it that Keir Starmer has an app handy that will allow storage tank dips to be remotely witnessed at 3am in the teeth of a howling gale (excise officers), or the state of a woodland to be gauged (forestry officers), or the health of personal independence payment claimants (Department for Work and Pensions officials). Actually scrub that last one. The DWP doesn’t work for anyone, least of all the claimants.
Polly Llwynfedwen
Aberhonddu, Powys

I am reminded of a time around 40 years ago, when some idiotic Treasury individuals tried to impose manpower cuts on what was then the Department of Health and Social Security. My father, then director of establishments, responded in the best traditions of Yes Minister: “What would you like us not to do?”
Christopher House
Hertford

Keir Starmer proposes increased use of artificial intelligence to improve the civil service. Wouldn’t a logical first step have been to first try greater use of human intelligence?
John Rushton
Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire

Perhaps Keir Starmer could set up a department for underperformance, mergers and passivity (Dump). I’m sure he could find a tech entrepreneur to run it.
Martin Freedman
London