The growth we don't need

Jonathan Eida has a useful TPA piece on what seems like the inexorable growth of the Civil Service and the humongous liabilities which come with it. Depressing but worth reading as there is no obvious prospect of Andrew Burnham doing anything about it.


The true cost of the civil service is worse than you think

The waistband on the trousers of the civil service continues to stretch as the Whitehall blob expands year after year. The prime minister may come and go, but the appetite for a larger, more active state appears remarkably constant. Andy Burnham is no exception, with his “Number 10 North” proposal being just the latest pretext for another layer of bureaucracy.

Since the government began publishing comparable civil service workforce data in 2016, headcount has risen by a shocking 33.3 per cent.

Between March 2016 and March 2026, civil service employment increased by 139,485, from 418,340 to 557,825. In the last year alone, the number of civil servants rose by 8,165, or 1.5 per cent, from 549,660 in March 2025 to 557,825 in March 2026. That rate of growth was two and a half times the 0.6 per cent increase in total public sector headcount over the same period.

The most uninspiring official announcement since...

Prime Minister puts public control, community regeneration and cost-of-living at the heart of plans to ‘rewire Britain’

• Three new cross-government taskforces are being launched in the new Office for the Prime Minister & Cabinet, tackling systemic issues like the cost of living and public control of essentials and supporting local communities.
• Action to be taken on cost of living, local regeneration and essential services to drive down costs and support families.
• Taskforces will tackle the immediate priorities of the public, building on action already taken including cutting bus fares and cracking down on subscription traps.
• First Secretary of State, Louise Haigh to drive forward work across government to develop local solutions for local communities.

Three new cross-government taskforces are being launched in the new Office for the Prime Minister & Cabinet, tackling systemic issues like the cost of living and public control of essentials and supporting local communities.

Blimey Burnham's reign already shows signs of turbocharged tedium, possibly beating Starmer's turgid stint. 

It is even possible that experienced bureaucrats will be left floundering here, valiantly struggling to find procedures and processes to be expanded, mission-creeped and thoroughly gold-plated in the traditional manner. 

Oh well, I wonder if my slippers need replacing yet...

Tea Bags and Brussels

Brussels now even regulates the disposal of used tea bags and coffee capsules

Since 12 August 2026, the new EU Packaging Regulation has been in force in all member states. Brussels is now explicitly regulating what should happen to used tea bags, coffee pods and certain coffee capsules. It is legally considered packaging and therefore falls under European requirements for disposal, recycling and labelling. The background is incorrectly separated waste, which can contaminate compost and recycling material. Disposal rules are therefore changing for consumers, while companies have to comply with other requirements. After all, Europe has major tasks to cope with – and apparently their solution begins with the moist tea bag.

Tea bags are finally getting attention from Brussels

For decades, handling a tea bag was surprisingly uncomplicated. Tea was brewed, drank and then the bag was thrown away. But this phase of largely unregulated freedom is now over. The EU explicitly assigns tea and coffee portions to packaging law. This means that even the used tea bag finally has the European legal status that it has apparently been sorely lacking so far.

The hidden costs of compliance

A useful TPA piece on the Financial Conduct Authority written by a professional working in the City of London who wishes to remain anonymous. The whole piece is well worth reading.

The hidden costs of compliance

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has done some fantastic work on the costs that regulators are placing on businesses around the country and the burden this places on us employees who are forced to spend our time getting cosy with all the various regulations imposed upon us.

The FCA is the most notorious example in my industry of a regulator that keeps piling new initiatives and regulations onto our businesses. It routinely goes beyond its remit and implements new regulations which take staff away from their productive day jobs and turn our attention to the latest fad that the FCA wants us to adopt.

Usually, the regulation is hidden behind an innocent sounding title, but the connection to the core goal of “financial conduct” is spurious at best, or covered by a myriad of other regulators which already give us enough grief as it is.

The FCA’s non-financial misconduct regulation is one of the most obvious examples of where it has overreached, with the regulator now acting as a social crusader rather than a financial regulator. Non-financial misconduct includes behaviour that is not clearly financial in nature, such as bullying, harassment and violence.

Obvious isn't enough

A surprisingly interesting gov.uk report on the bureaucratic moves which have to be made before Aldi and Lidl can be formally classed as 'Large Grocery Retailers' under rules set out in the Groceries Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order 2010.

Aldi and Lidl should be subject to the same rules as major supermarkets

• CMA proposes to prevent Aldi and Lidl from blocking rival supermarkets opening close to their stores
• Provisional decisions find that Aldi, Lidl GB and Lidl NI are ‘Large Grocery Retailers’
• CMA is seeking views before making a final decision

Following a review, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally decided that Aldi, Lidl GB and Lidl NI should be subject to rules set out in the Groceries Market Investigation (Controlled Land) Order 2010, which already apply to the UK’s biggest supermarket chains.

The Order is designed to stop ‘Large Grocery Retailers’ (LGRs) from using land agreements to make it harder for rival supermarkets to open nearby – in particular through the use of restrictive covenants and exclusivity arrangements. The rules ensure supermarkets compete freely – and ultimately ensure shoppers have more choice about where to buy, and how much to pay for, their groceries.

A headline and one of the comments

The unabashed socialist filling Andy Burnham’s mayoral shoes

There are only two really famous people from Burnage in Manchester, neither of them politicians. The suburb is the birthplace of Oasis’s Gallagher brothers, who put Manchester on the map in the mid-1990s, back when Andy Burnham was just another face in the crowd at the Hacienda.

Thirty years on, however, another Burnage resident is in the spotlight. Step forward, Bev Craig, the local Labour councillor who has replaced Burnham as Manchester’s mayor after his departure to Downing Street.



Scott Davies

Complete waste of time all these Mayoral offices, just another layer of useless government to add to the layer upon layer of district councils, local councils, city councils, county councils, PCCs, quangos, the civil service the government itself, committees.....all of it utterly useless. Just look at the state of the country. 

I use public transport in Greater Manchester and like public transport in the rest of the UK its a total shambles. I end up walking half the time or have to take a taxi.

Bridgnorth Litter Pickers do it themselves

An entertaining little insight into the reality of everyday bureaucracy.

Made without warning or scientific review.

Trump admin faces backlash over plan to dismantle ocean sensor

• A bipartisan group of senators and two Democratic House committees are challenging the National Science Foundation's (NSF) plan to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), a crucial ocean monitoring network.
• The OOI, a $386 million network of over 900 sensors, has tracked ocean circulation, climate change, and extreme weather for a decade, with data freely available and contributing to over 500 scientific publications.
• The NSF plans to remove most OOI instruments by 2027, citing 'evolving scientific priorities,' a decision that scientists say was made without warning or scientific review.

No doubt the decision was made without warning because there is only one conclusion a scientific review was ever likely to reach. It would also be designed to take longer than Donald Trump's remaining time as US President. 

It's what they do.

Moving Targets

 

The Global Gravy Train

A recurring impression garnered from even casual internet browsing is that the bureaucratic gravy train is near enough global. North Korea doesn't seem to be involved, but it's an outlier. 

Here for example, we have Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan booking their seats at the global gravy train table.

Opinion: The Regional Ecological Summit and the Making of a Central Asian Voice

On 22–24 April, Astana hosted the Regional Ecological Summit—a gathering of governments, international organizations, financial institutions, and civil society that marked a new level of ambition in Central Asia’s environmental diplomacy. Fifty-eight sessions were held across three days at a moment when Central Asia’s ecological agenda is becoming inseparable from its political and economic future.

The opening ceremony was attended by the presidents of all five Central Asian states. The summit adopted the Astana Declaration on Ecological Solidarity in Central Asia and brought renewed attention to the need to reform the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). Taken together, these developments signal more than procedural diplomacy. They point to growing political momentum.

The region has never lacked shared history or channels of communication. Russian remains a practical language of intergovernmental exchange, and borders, economies, rivers, energy systems, and labor markets have tied these countries together long before contemporary climate diplomacy gave this interdependence a new vocabulary.

Yes - contemporary climate diplomacy does give interdependence a new vocabulary, that's the idea.

I bet he's not even in the union

Health and safety-mad council threatens 'wonderful' Good Samaritan for cleaning gravestones

Ben McGregor, 25, who lost his father and best friend to suicide, voluntarily washes headstones in order to "do his bit for the community".

Mr McGregor manages his cleaning requests through a Facebook page, and said he always ensures he has the permission of the grave owners before embarking on any project...

A spokesman for South Tyneside Council said: "We greatly value the work of volunteers who help care for our cemeteries and work closely with several established Friends of Cemetery groups across the borough.

"A borough‑wide memorial inspection programme is currently underway and not all cemeteries have yet been inspected."

It added that it would be "inappropriate" to allow memorials to be cleaned in areas where standard checks for safety, risk, assessments, insurance and liability have not yet taken place, and has asked all volunteer groups to pause cleaning.

One of those entertaining jobsworth stories we never seem to run out of. We've been cleaning our daughter's grave for over thirty years, but we haven't done a risk assessment, insured ourselves or checked anything to do with liability. 

Don't tell anyone though.

The government’s nutrient profiling model

Lidl and Iceland become first retailers to have ads banned under new junk food rules

Lidl and Iceland have become the first retailers to have advertisements banned under the UK’s new rules restricting the promotion of junk food.

The Advertising Standards Authority said ads from the two supermarkets breached regulations introduced on 5 January, which ban HFSS products (foods high in fat, salt and sugar) from being advertised on TV before 9pm and in paid-for online advertising at any time.

Under the regulations, confectionery products such as sweets and chocolates automatically fail the government’s nutrient profiling model and are classed as less healthy, meaning they cannot be promoted through paid online advertising.

Admittedly supermarkets do sell what Mrs H and I see as junk food, but we wouldn't ban supermarkets from advertising it even if we could.

The interesting aspect is the government’s nutrient profiling model which has been around for a while. Interesting because it's yet another example of the mind-boggling depths to which government micro-management has descended. 

The current version is Nutrient profiling model 2004 to 2005 which gives this brief outline of how it works -

The Nutrient Profiling Model 

The nutrient profiling model was developed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in 2004 2005 to provide Ofcom, the broadcast regulator, with a tool to differentiate of foods on the basis of their nutritional composition, in the context of television advertising foods to children. The model uses a simple scoring system where points are allocated on the basis of the nutrient content of 100g of a food or drink. Points are awarded for ‘A’ nutrients (energy, saturated fat, total sugar and sodium), and for ‘C’ nutrients (fruit, vegetables and nut content, fibre and protein). The score for ‘C’ nutrients is then subtracted from the score for ‘A’ nutrients to give the final nutrient profile score. Foods scoring 4 or more points, and drinks scoring 1 or more points, are classified as ‘less healthy’ and are subject to Ofcom’s controls on the advertising of foods to children on TV.  

Bad news for ‘annoying people’

Digital ID consultation: Bad news for ‘annoying people’, good news for future governments – and five other things we learned

  

Source

At a Downing Street event launching the consultation, chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones (pictured above) told PublicTechnology and other reporters that new forms of identity are key to his administration’s vision of “government-by-app”...

…and levelling the playing field for service users who aren’t ‘annoying’
A world in which citizens can use digital platforms to access government services and information at any time of their choosing is one that will be much more egalitarian, Jones claimed...

“People often end up getting to the front of the queue because they [are] being a bit annoying. And, so, if you’ve got the time to ring and ring and ring and say: ‘Where is the answer? Where am I in the process?’, you do get treated differently to the person who doesn’t have the time to do that. And that’s just inherently unfair, because it means you’re not prioritisng [sic] people in a fair way in terms of their need for support.”


Naturally all this has nothing to do with throttling Freedom of Information requests or anything as annoying as that.

Nothing to do with bureaucrats erecting digital walls between the bureaucracy and those 'service users' who aren't annoying because they no longer have any way to be annoying.

Lanyard Class Fiasco

Multimillion-pound push to transform 'broken' UK military is a 'fiasco'

A multimillion-pound push by the defence secretary to transform how the UK rearms and fights is a "fiasco", with too much focus on changing structures instead of preparing for war, according to interviews and conversations with a dozen defence sources.

Time has even been spent inside the Ministry of Defence (MoD) quibbling over the name of a new organisation charged with procuring billions of pounds worth of weapons - despite war gripping both the Middle East and Ukraine, and Donald Trump mocking British military weakness.

Two sources said some people would like to rename the newly established National Armaments Director Group, or NAD Group, as the Royal Armaments Directorate.

One of the sources claimed this was in part because the abbreviation "NAD" also means testicle - an unfortunate source of amusement. The other source said it was because the word "royal" would engender a greater sense of pride.

Sounds serious. If they can't agree on a name then the lanyards won't be ready for the first round of meetings. 

We are not customers

HMRC lifts lid on £1bn-plus programme to ‘create a generational shift in customer service’ with single taxpayer view

HM Revenue and Customs has revealed details of a new major project set to be worth more than £1bn and intended to “create a generational shift in customer service” by creating a single unified view of each citizen’s interaction with the tax system.

The department has revealed that its Enterprise Customer Relationship Management (ECRM) programme is a recent addition to the government’s major projects portfolio. Details of the scheme were contained in a newly issued transparency document formally announcing the appointment of HMRC senior official Mike Beddington as the project’s senior responsible owner.

Surely there are many more accurate words than 'customer'. There are many better words than 'service' too. 

Maybe HMRC should stick 'taxpayers' which is at least accurate, although it may not be so easy to find a more suitable word than 'service'.

Knock Knock

Rayner's 'workers' rights police' get powers to arrest, use 'reasonable force' and search buildings

Angela Rayner's 'jobs police' have powers to arrest people, use 'reasonable' force and seize documents while conducting workplace searches, it has been confirmed.

The Fair Work Agency (FWA) is being established as part of Labour's overhaul of workers' rights via the Employment Rights Act.

The legislation, which was spearheaded by Ms Rayner before her resignation as deputy prime minister last year, began to take effect this week.

A new document published by the Government has now detailed the powers that the FWA - dubbed Labour's 'jobs police' - has to enforce workplace laws.


That's Starmer's Labour, the party in love with the notion of policing everything...

Although come to think of it, I don't pay Mrs H for cutting my hair...

Crikey.

Bedrock

Full list as Trump announces US will leave 66 key organizations

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States would withdraw from dozens of international and United Nations entities, claiming they "operate contrary to U.S. national interests."

The decision targets 35 non-UN groups and 31 UN entities, including a crucial climate treaty and a UN body promoting gender equality and women's empowerment. Among these is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, widely considered the "bedrock" climate treaty and parent agreement to the 2015 Paris climate deal.

Nobody paying attention is surprised. Presumably these 'key organisations' will have been identified as bureaucratic money swamps or worse and the US is no longer keen on funding them. Good, here in the UK we should do the same, but we won't. 

To take just one example, we've known for decades that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is not worth funding, but there are many others such as the NRDC, another outfit playing the global climate game.


"The United States would be the first country to walk away from the UNFCCC," said Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Progressive driving licences

What are progressive driving licences and will the UK introduce them?

Ministers are expected to resist calls for a major overhaul of driving qualifications when they unveil their latest plans to improve road safety.

Campaigners have argued that replacing Britain's current driving test regime could prevent thousands of injuries and deaths on the nation’s roads every year.

The existing ‘one-and-done’ system means newly qualified drivers face the same rules of the road as other more experienced motorists as soon as they pass their test...

While a ‘graduated’ or ‘progressive’ driving licence could take several forms, it would likely see restrictions such as a top speed, number of passengers and the types of roads they can drive on.

These would be gradually lifted based on factors such as age, competence behind the wheel and driving experience.

Ministers may resist but campaigners won't stop campaigning. Meddling never ends and there is no indication that it ever will.

Soft skills

Defra agency seeks software to help improve ‘communication and soft skills’ of farm inspectors

Animal and Plant Health Agency, whose responsibilities include monitoring wellbeing of livestock and ensuring standards are met, is interested in software that could help prepare for encounters with angry farmers

The government body responsible for regulating and enforcing animal welfare laws has unveiled plans to invest in software that could help frontline inspectors improve their people skills.

An outsider is bound to wonder why the public sector is so fond of referring to its staff as 'frontline'. It's not likely that anyone believes it, although Defra inspectors probably believe it when confronted with angry farmers. Even so, the farmers are 'frontline' if anyone is.

The same outsider is also bound to wonder if anyone is seeking software to help improve Keir Starmer's people skills. He's frontline too - for now.

Wrong oaks from little acorns grow

When bureaucratic planting schemes go wrong, an entertaining story from Blackout News - AI translation of the original German.


False oaks planted - compensation forest for A14 to be cut down again

A large-scale mixed forest near Gardelegen is on the verge of closure - and only six years after its planting. The reason: The oaks planted there do not come from the legally prescribed zones of origin. Although the young trees look healthy and have grown well, their clearing is now threatened. This compensation area, created because of the expansion of the A14, was actually a symbol of ecological responsibility. But now this is developing into a bureaucratic dilemma, growing citizen protest, rising costs and massive criticism of forestry policy...

In the affected mixed forest, there are hardly any problems. The oaks have taken root deep into the dry Altmark soil. Other species such as the European beech, a close relative of the oak, are also developing positively. So far, the area has fulfilled its function as a near-natural compensation area for the infrastructure project.

According to forestry authorities, however, the planting does not meet the legal requirements – a classic case of incorrectly delivered seeds. The question of guilt is therefore directed against the contracted company. In case of doubt, this must not only pay for the damage, but also provide replacement areas.