'Brexit is too much for the civil service', chief executive says

Huge workload: Brexit
Virginia Mayo/AP
Saphora Smith17 November 2016
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The civil service is struggling to cope with the workload of delivering Brexit, according to its chief executive.

John Manzoni, chief executive of the civil service, said the Government needs to scale back its objectives and re-asses what is realistic or risk failure.

Mr Manzoni told Civil Service World: "When I look across from outside, I say we're doing 30% too much to do it all well – that is the nature of government."

He said Whitehall was “still in thinking mode.”

“Along comes Brexit – 90% of your business has just changed. How do we absorb that?

“The fact is we need to go back, we need to re-plan, we need to be realistic, we can't do it all – it won't all happen within the existing envelope”

Mr Manzoni’s remarks come days after a leaked memo claimed the Government could not cope with Brexit.

The paper from consultancy firm Deloitte said that an extra 30,000 civil servants may be needed to cope with the increased workload.

The Government disputed the findings of the report.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said the memo was “unsolicited” and that the consultant who wrote it had not been working for the Government.

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