Civil Service headcount grew despite cap announced by previous Government,

The Civil Service continued to expand rapidly last year despite the Tories trying to impose a cap on its headcount.

A new report has found the number of officials grew by 17,000 in the nine months after Jeremy Hunt announced an “immediate” recruitment freeze.

The Institute for Government (IfG) said it was “concerning” that Whitehall had carried on recruiting despite being explicitly told by ministers to stop.

In a new report, the think-tank found that the size of the civil service has now bounced back to its pre-2010 levels under New Labour.

There are now 515,000 officials working for the central state, up from a low of 384,000 which was achieved just before the Brexit referendum.

Whitehall’s headcount has increased in every single quarter since June 2016 except one, with a big spike also seen during the Covid pandemic.

An extra 2,000 officials were hired by government departments in the first three months after Sir Keir Starmer entered No 10 last July, figures show.

Mr Hunt, the former chancellor, announced in October 2023 that he was introducing an “immediate” freeze on the civil service headcount.

At that point the number of full-time equivalent officials stood at 496,000. But by the following June it had expanded to 513,000 – a 3.4pc increase.

In its annual Whitehall Monitor report, published on Thursday, the IfG said: “The past year has been marked by continued growth in the civil service.

“This growth occurred despite the former chancellor Jeremy Hunt imposing an ‘immediate’ cap on civil service headcount in October 2023.

“More concerning is that it has been contrary to the explicit intentions of ministers.

“This unplanned growth represents a continued failure by both ministers and Whitehall leaders to properly plan and manage the civil service workforce.”

Labour ditched the headcount cap upon entering office, arguing that it would only push up the service’s spend on pricey external consultants.

Rachel Reeves also poured more money into government departments at her first budget which they may use to hire even more mandarins.

The IfG’s report also found that last year a record number of civil servants moved between government departments.

It warned that the number of senior officials moving posts had “significant implications for institutional memory, effectiveness and delivery across Whitehall”.

The think-tank found that departments had been using “unplanned and uncontrolled grade inflation” to get around previous Tory salary freezes.

As a result the size of the civil service’s middle management grades has more than doubled in size since 2010, with mandarins promoted to boost their pay.

Elsewhere the report found that the Home Office’s pay on private sector consultants has almost doubled as it battles the small boat crisis.

Last year the department spent £239 million on bringing in outside help, compared with £128 million in 2022-23.

Labour has pledged to drive down Whitehall’s spending on consultants, which reached £668 million across 15 core government departments last year.

A government spokesman said: “Under our Plan for Change, we are making sure every part of government is delivering on working people’s priorities, galvanising the whole of Whitehall towards a shared purpose through our missions.

“To support this, we are working at pace to develop a strategic plan for a more efficient and effective civil service, which will include bold measures to improve skills, harness digital technology and improve public services.”

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