Almost 3,000 Civil Service job roles will be opened up outside London and the South-East by 2025, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Home Secretary Priti Patel have jointly announced.
This forms part of a cross-government move, the Places for Growth scheme, to ensure policymakers reflect the communities they serve while levelling up by ensuring economic growth and job opportunities are more evenly distributed across the UK.
As part of the plans, the Home Office will establish a new Innovation Centre in Stoke-on-Trent, which will accommodate case-working roles and an Asylum hub. Over five years the Stoke hub will accommodate more than 500 roles.
The plans will bring operational, policy and corporate functions to the city, providing a pipeline of exciting career paths for the local community with an apprentice-first policy for hiring at junior grades.
In addition, Home Office presence including Senior Civil Service roles is expected to increase in smaller cities and large towns such as Solihull.
Elsewhere in the Midlands, 325 Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) roles will move to Birmingham by 2025.
This plan will ensure the BEIS is represented by policymakers operating across all four corners of the UK.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said:
We are doubling down on our commitment to level up every region of the UK, so that every part of the country can share in the UK’s future prosperity.
Our policy developers and decision-makers must reflect the communities they serve. Relocating these Civil Service roles will ensure central government hears the voice of local communities louder and clearer than ever before, while creating hubs of economic opportunity and growth across the UK.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said:
Day in day out thousands of Home Office staff work tirelessly to keep the public safe, cut crime, and improve our immigration system.
It is so important that they represent the communities they serve, and by creating 500 new Home Office jobs in Stoke-on-Trent the government is delivering on its promise to level up communities across the country and build a safer, fairer and more prosperous UK.
As part of the government’s commitment to levelling up every region of the UK, the Chancellor announced at Budget 2020 that the government would shift 22,000 Civil Service jobs out of London by the end of the decade – with a target for 25% of roles to be outside London by 2025.
This announcement follows a cross-government drive to bring jobs to regions, with the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government establishing a new headquarters in Wolverhampton and the Department of Transport creating a presence in Birmingham.
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