More than 500 Department for Education staff have applied for pay-outs to quit under a “selective voluntary exit scheme” for staff “who don’t have the skills the department needs for the future”.
The aim is to get staffing numbers “closer” to 2020 levels.
According to official figures, the DfE and its agency the Education and Skills Funding Agency employed about 8,200 people when the scheme was launched in the autumn.
In pre-pandemic February 2020, the two organisations had a joint headcount of about 7,400.
If numbers are cut back to this level, this would mean a 10 per cent reduction, although the department insisted it was not a target-driven scheme.
A Freedom of Information request by Schools Week has revealed 555 applications were received during a two-week window before Christmas, about 7 per cent of staff.
The department said this was “broadly in line with expectations”.
“We are concentrating on having a skilled, effective workforce for the future that allows us to do the best we can for children and learners,” it said.
Staff are offered three weeks’ salary for each year of service if they leave by May.
The applications will be considered using a “robust and fair selection process” in which the DfE will consider the “skills the department needs for the future and the potential to realise efficiencies”.
The prime minister has asked every department to look for “the most effective ways to secure value and maximise efficiency within budgets”, although he axed plans last year to cut 91,000 civil service jobs over three years.
In October, the DfE’s staffing bill was about £40 million.
The FDA senior civil servants’ union previously expressed concern that there was “no real waste to be cut and minister priorities need to be delivered” at the DfE.
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