Analysis
The Department for Transport loses one in five key staff a year, significantly damaging expertise. PAUL CLIFTON examines a new study into how high staff turnover is hurting the industry
High staff turnover at the DfT.
STAFF turnover among senior civil servants at the Department for Transport is much higher than in the private sector.
People who stay in the same job for more than one or two years are regarded as being “in the slow lane”.
And the employment structure encourages staff to move rapidly from one Government department to another, allowing no time to build up professional expertise in any sector.
The result is that individual rail programmes overseen by the Department can turn over half a dozen leaders, with none staying to see a project through.
These are the findings of a new report by the Institute for Government. In 2017-18 alone, the report discovers that the DfT lost 17% of its most senior personnel, and had the fourth highest staff turnover of all Whitehall departments.
It concludes: “In just three years, multibillion-pound projects can cycle through five project directors and whole policy teams turn over almost entirely. Most affected is the Treasury, where one in five key staff leave every year. Staff turnover is not healthy but debilitating.”
Permanent Secretaries - the heads of department - survive in post only a year longer than English football managers. Senior civil servants typically stay less than two years in post, a figure that excludes those who move within the same department. By contrast, the average chief executive of a UK company stays for five years (down from eight years in 2010).
One in three DfT senior staff have either left within the last year or have been in post for less than one year, according to Cabinet Office data.
Seven out of ten senior DfT staff intend to leave in the next two years, and only one in three intend to stay for at least three years.
The cost of recruiting and training replacements, and covering lost productivity, runs into tens of millions of pounds each year. The National Audit Office (NAO) found that one Government department alone was paying recruitment agencies over £1 million a year for Whitehall posts. The report quotes a figure of £6,500 to recruit and train a replacement for someone earning £25,000 or more, which excludes the cost of lower productivity.
For more complex knowledgebased roles, it can take professionals two years to reach full productivity. And when managers change frequently, it reduces the productivity of a whole team or organisation.
Staff turnover getting worse
Around a quarter of the Treasury’s staff leave every year. That figure does not include those who change roles within the Department.
Report authors Tom Sasse and Emma Norris say the problem of high staff turnover has worsened since 2010, because of two changes: ■ An open internal jobs market was introduced across Whitehall. ■ The inability of managers to reward those who stay in post. If staff desire to earn more, they must change job.
The result is a culture which prizes rapid movement over those who acquire specialist expertise and see projects through to completion.
With 450,000 staff, the civil service is the UK’s second largest employer, behind the NHS and ahead of Tesco.
“While some people will always leave for roles outside, an increasing proportion of staff turnover is due to staff switching departments. Anyone can apply for any job at any time, and managers have little means to encourage them to stay,” the report authors found.
“Pay restraint has meant that civil servants no longer move up through the ‘spines’ in pay bands automatically, as the large majority did before. Their pay remains the same, apart from a small belowinflation increase, unless they move roles.
“As a result, a wide gap develops between the pay of officials who move jobs frequently and those who stay in post.”
One senior civil servant told the authors: “You are always on the lookout for a move.”
Another said: “I’d been in the department six months, so it was time to start looking for something else.”
Sasse and Norris add: “Staying within one team for more than two or three years is the equivalent of being stuck in the slow lane while your peers overtake you.
“Mid-ranking policy officials told us they are strongly encouraged to move on after 18 months. Staying in one policy area is not encouraged. Managers consider officials who have stayed for more than two or three years to be ‘duds’.
“Several London based departments consistently lose 20% to 25% of staff each year. A new Minister will find four in ten of their senior officials have been in post less than a year.
“Whitehall struggles to retain knowledge and expertise. Ministers, who themselves often move around quickly, frequently complain that they know more about a policy area than the officials who advise them.”
The report quotes Cabinet Office Minister Oliver Letwin, who said that when discussing policy: “People just didn’t know what they were talking about or have any evidence behind it.”
And now… Brexit
The challenges of Brexit are further increasing staff turnover, as it has created a lot of opportunities for staff to move jobs. Some 160 DfT officials are currently working full-time on the consequences of a no-deal Brexit, with the possibility that this number will be increased dramatically in the next few weeks.
Institute for Government analysis found that 10,000 Brexit roles have been created since the EU referendum. And the NAO found that while some people have been recruited to these posts from outside the civil service, most have been filled by internal transfers, loans or “fast streamers” - highperforming staff.
This creates significant capability gaps that people transferring leave behind, says the Institute for Government. Shifting effort to focus on Brexit has already contributed to delays in other areas.
And to compound the problem, the data reveals that many recruits are also not staying long in the Brexit roles. Within the Department for Exiting the EU, 16.9% of staff have already moved on, with 44% planning to leave within the next year.
Tackling turnover
The report concludes that reforming Whitehall pay is the first step to reducing staff turnover, so that people who perform well or acquire extra skills are able to increase their pay while staying in post. This is standard practice in the private sector.
Beyond that, a career progression system needs to reward “the right mix of specialist skills, policy knowledge and generalist capabilities; and creates a culture that encourages some officials to move through a wide range of roles, while ensuring others to stay in post longer, build deeper expertise and complete key projects”.