15,000 justice department staff may lose jobs in Britain

LONDON - At least 15,000 staff of Britain’s justice department may lose their jobs as the government has planned to reduce its budget from October this year as part of its deficit reduction plan.

“There will have to be less of us as we cannot streamline the organisation to work effectively and efficiently without considering staff numbers,” said Ann Beasley, the director general of finance for the Ministry of Justice.

Unions fear 15,000 jobs could be lost after staff were warned that redundancies are inevitable as the department cuts its 9-billion-pound budget. Details of the job cuts were exposed in a letter leaked to the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) Union, The Telegraph reported.

In the letter, Beasley said the department was in negotiations with the Treasury and further details could not be revealed yet.

“I can, however, tell you that the scale of the savings we will have to make are extremely challenging and, given our current budget of around 9 billion pound, are expected to be around 2 billion pound,” she said.

“The level of savings we expect to have to make from our headquarters and administrative areas alone is around 450 million pounds -around one-third of our current administrative costs. This is in line with the one-third savings required by Government.

“Many savings will have to be made quickly within the first 12-24 months. Efficiencies alone will not be enough. It will mean we have to look at every opportunity to work differently and better. It will also mean there will have to be less of us.

“Over 4 billion pound of the department’s current budget is spent on staff costs and we cannot streamline the organisation to work effectively and efficiently without considering staff numbers.”

The PCS union said the cuts were “equivalent to the entire budget for prisons, or the money the department spends each year on courts and tribunals”.

The union said it feared about 15,000 of the 80,000 staff at the ministry could be at risk of losing their jobs.

“Cuts on this scale cannot be delivered without closing prisons and bringing courts to a standstill,” the union said.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “This is the first indication of the true scale of the cuts being imposed upon departments by this coalition Government, and it paints a devastating picture.

“It is clear that the civil service will simply not be able to cope. We will take every opportunity to remind the Government and the public that there is an alternative and these politically-motivated cuts are entirely avoidable.”

Details of the cuts, which form part of the Spending Review 2010, will be agreed and announced October 20.

This will be followed by a departmental business plan that “will explain to the public how, over the next four years, we will use the money that has been allocated to us”, Beasley wrote in her letter to senior civil servants within the Ministry of Justice.

A ministry spokesman said: “The Ministry of Justice has submitted proposals for savings to HM Treasury.

“Like all departments we were asked to plan for savings of 25 percent and 40 percent as part of the Coalition Government’s Deficit Reduction Plan.

“We are discussing options with Treasury and will not provide a running commentary on the process. No decisions have been made. The outcome of the Spending Review will be announced on October 20.”