Poorly managed proposed cuts to the UK’s public sector workforce could pose significant long-term problems affecting the capacity and capability of public bodies to provide vital services, according to the Link Tanks research forum.

The forum has highlighted key areas for improvement regarding current approaches to public sector procurement and management staff:

• Recruitment costs across the public sector is £7,750 per vacancy
• The average lead time to recruit new candidates across the sector currently stands at 186 days, which causes resource challenges and often an over-reliance on temporary staff solutions
• In London alone, local authorities now spend over £500m a year on temporary staff which the forum says inflates public sector costs and can diminish the quality of public services
• Only 6% of the public sector workforce is under 26. Proportionally, the private sector is three times more likely to hire younger workers
• 70% of the public sector workforce have not received training over the past decade.