Dr Ruth Dixon and Professor Christopher Hoods research into civil service cuts generates media interest

Ruth Dixon and Christopher Hoods research into cuts in central government administration costs, published this month in the report titled A Model of Cost Cutting in Government, has been picked up by several media outlets, including the Guardian and the Civil Service World magazine, which is viewed by many top civil servants. This was then followed by a Guardian article written by Ruth and Christopher, entitled Why cutting civil service admin costs is a tough task.

The research examined 30 years of government data to conclude that there has been no example of administrative cost-cutting remotely close to the scale of the present governments budget-cutting targets. Only one Prime Minister John Major achieved any real-term reduction in central administration costs over a five year period, since 1980 (the Guardian, 10 October 2012).

Commentary on the research is available on the British Politics and Policy at LSE blog and at the Politics in Spires blog Cutting the Costs of Bureaucracy: are we nearly there yet and how would we know?

A four page summary of the report is available on the project website, http://xgov.politics.ox.ac.uk.

Dr Ruth Dixon is Leverhulme Trust Postdoctoral Researcher