Overall civil service pay is now back above 2010 levels in real terms, for the first time since 2021.

And this really shows how recent pay deals have focused on the lowest paid - AO/AAs have seen a rise of 11.5% in real terms since 2023.

The SR confirms an overall 16% real terms cut to dept administration budgets by 2029/30 (which will drive down staff numbers)....

...but for lots of depts, including the largest and biggest spenders, these cuts are suspiciously (implausibly?) weighted to the final year

It's not easy to work out how/why depts have grown using public data. But data on the 'professions' of civil servants in the department over time gives some idea.

This is data for the Cabinet Office, showing the individual professions which expanded the most between 2016 and 2024

Cabinet Office has indeed grown a *lot* in recent years

Some of this reflects the build up of the civil service's corporate functions (eg HR, commercial) - whose employees often sit in line departments while formally being in CO.

But even so - this is a very big increase

The other exception is satisfaction with 'leadership and managing change'.

In 2024, this measure fell for the fourth consecutive year (albeit only just) - a worrying trend that ministers and civil service leaders will need to address.

One of the exceptions is satisfaction with pay and benefits. This isn't surprising - as in the wider economy, all grades in the civil service saw real terms pay fall (in some cases plummet) after 2010.

So satisfaction with pay has long been low.

The survey also looks at officials' satisfaction across nine 'theme scores' - from 'pay and benefits' to 'resources and workload'

This is what the trends in those theme scores look like since 2010.

With two exceptions, they've generally trended upwards.

The headline measure of the people survey is the 'engagement index' / score

A composite of lots of other measures, it's a proxy for overall morale.

Having fallen for 3 years in a row, in 2024 morale rose slightly. But only back to ~2021 levels.

Good to speak to @masonboyowen.bsky.social for this week’s Influence on post-spad life.

They’re weird, hard and privileged jobs - which you soon realise you’ll never have again.

Which is hard to adjust to…but at least you now get some severance after being shown the door!

Satisfaction with pay ticked up, but officials' views on 'leadership and managing change' declined for the third consecutive year.

Beyond all that - morale is another big theme of the report this year.

Overall, morale fell for the third year in a row in 2023 (the latest data available….), even though it rose in most departments.

And this shows why that grade inflation is happening. While 2024 saw average civil service pay almost returning to 2010 levels in real terms, for individual grades it's still way down.

The changing grade structure of the CS also shows poor workforce planning.

The shift in structure is partly down to automation of junior roles. But a significant amount is down to 'grade inflation' - officials promoted sooner than they otherwise would be, to get round low pay.

In 23/24 the rate of turnover increased, with more than 1 in 10 officials either leaving the civil service or moving between departments.

This underestimates real turnover - those moving jobs within a department aren't counted. So really, it's much higher.

The most significant of those problems is poor workforce planning.

The civil service has continued to grow. There are (some) good reasons for this - but particularly since the pandemic, it's happened almost accidentally, without any coherent plan or coordination.

This is the first Whitehall Monitor published under a Labour government.

So we start by looking at the shape and experience of that government - Starmer's ministers have a good amount of experience (both shadowing their roles and previous govt experience) compared to '97 and '10