LONDON — Britain’s trade department is bracing for a 20 percent cut to its workforce as the country grapples with an unpredictable U.S. president and seeks new trade opportunities to kickstart its sluggish economy.
Staff at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) have been warned that their 8,000-strong workforce will shrink to 6,500. The plan to reduce headcount is being rolled out in phases, according to three figures familiar with the plans, who like others in this story were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
A hiring freeze is currently in place, and the department is already seeking voluntary redundancies. If targets are not met, some staff could face compulsory redundancies, according to two of the figures.
Staff were first warned DBT’s headcount would shrink by more than 20 percent around the time the government published its spending plans for the next three years in June. They were also told efficiency savings would be a main priority for the department. Extra money was announced at the time to fund voluntary exits across the civil service.
A Voluntary Exit Scheme for the department was launched on June 2 and ran until June 20. But one person familiar with the planning said DBT’s target of 950 volunteers looks out of reach. That scheme is due to be completed by April 2026.
The Business Group — DBT’s sectoral and industry-facing arm, which engages with British business sectors — will be the hardest hit with up to 38 percent cuts. Staff promoting exports are also expecting major reductions.
This is due to duplication of roles, since DBT was carved out of two Whitehall departments in 2023, inheriting business-facing teams from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and export promotion roles from the Department for International Trade, according to two of the figures mentioned above.
Some export promotion work is expected to be taken on by foreign office staff. Diplomats have already been asked by Foreign Secretary David Lammy to promote the U.K. overseas, overlapping with some of the export promotion team’s mandate.
Former Tory Investment Minister Dominic Johnson said the DBT was “potentially one of the most cost-effective and useful mechanisms in government to achieve wealth,” but said he understood the focus on cuts to the export promotion team.
“The idea that we should have a sales force around the world helping business is never really that effective,” he told POLITICO.
He added that businesses really want “low tax, easy employment rules and well-designed fluid regulations,” adding that the “idea that the government can somehow ‘do business’ is nuts and is all that’s wrong with the world today.”
Trade veteran David Henig, a former government adviser now at the European Center for International Political Economy said he “would expect this to be taking a lot of staff time and energy.”
“Obviously fewer numbers may mean choices in what to prioritize,” he said. “I do think this government has undervalued the role of DBT, [as] implementing the trade and industrial strategies are crucial to U.K. growth.”
A government spokesperson confirmed it plans to “reduce the department in size.” While “no department-wide recruitment freeze has been put in place, the changes are designed to maximize [its] efficiency, ensuring [they] have the right expertise in the right place, while also delivering for British business,” they added.
The spokesperson said Chancellor Rachel Reeves had allocated £150 million to fund an employee exit scheme supporting “a leaner and more efficient civil service, helping to reduce [Whitehall-wide] administration costs by 15 percent by the end of the decade.”
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