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EIGHT senior civil servants have been made redundant, saving £552,000 annually, the government has said.

And further job losses within “upper tiers of management” are expected as part of a drive to curb public sector growth and reduce payroll spending, Deputy Malcolm Ferey added.

Deputy Ferey, who is vice-chair of the States Employment Board, said: “The savings are targeted at grade 11 and above, so it will be the upper tiers of management so that we’ll end up with a flatter management structure throughout the organisation.”

Speaking at the recent States sitting, Deputy Ferey also confirmed that the £552,000 of savings primarily come from the Office of the Chief Executive and the Chief Operating Office.

He added that, as of 31 August, no redundancies had been made in the Communications Department, with the priority instead on redeployment.

Since becoming Chief Minister in January, Deputy Lyndon Farnham has repeatedly talked about “curbing” spending in the public sector. He previously indicated that areas such as the Cabinet Office, Communications Department and senior and middle management roles could be targeted for “resizing”.

While no specific target for job cuts has been set, Deputy Ferey said that the focus was on savings of £15 million – a figure agreed upon in the Common Strategic Policy, which outlines the government’s top priorities for the coming years.

Deputy Ferey also revealed that the government has issued £330,000 in redundancy payments – ranging from £9,000 to £115,000 per individual.

He added that the government planned to prioritise voluntary redundancies and redeployment of existing staff to maintain essential services.

A nine-month recruitment freeze has also been implemented to prevent rehiring redundant staff and support internal redeployment.

Deputy Ferey said: “We will be looking at redundancies on a voluntary basis, and that is the first plan of attack.

“Where someone does decide to leave, we will seek to redeploy from within existing resources to fill those positions.

“We also, of course, have a recruitment freeze for a period of nine months to ensure that we don’t take on any more staff whilst we’re trying to rearrange the current staff that we have.”