This announcement has been in the pipeline (ahem) for over a month, I’m told. Could it have anything to do with the fact that hiring the former chief executive of BP as a government adviser could be unpopular – given the environmental disaster befalling the Gulf of Mexico?

Lord Browne was a somewhat controversial figure even before BP’s current nightmares.

The Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, has announced that Lord Browne of Madingley will become the Government’s lead Non-Executive Director. In this important new role, one of his first tasks will be to work with Secretaries of State to appoint Non-Executive Directors to the board of each government department. He will also work closely with the Minister for the Cabinet Office, Francis Maude, on overhauling how departmental boards are run and improving governance across Whitehall.

Continue reading: “Lord Browne, former head of BP, to join coalition government”

The Guardian had an eye-catching splash this morning warning that the Budget would “cost 1.3m jobs”. Particularly striking was the premise that more would be lost in the private sector than the public sector over the next five years as a result of cutting the deficit.

Read the story in detail, however, and it also emerges that 2.5m jobs will be created in the private sector in the next five years. The result (even presuming no new public sector jobs): a net increase of 1.2m jobs. This explains how the Office for Budget Responsibility can still predict unemployment to peak this year at 8.1 per cent and then fall to 6.1 per cent in 2015. (You may or may not find this all a little optimistic).

Every year – with or without recession – there is “churn” in the workplace. That is, some companies and institutions take on thousands of staff. Others axe posts. Therefore we should not necessarily be quite so alarmed.

As John Philpott, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, tell me:

The rule of thumb answer is that in a ‘normal’ (i.e. trend growth) year around 500,000 jobs will be lost (as a result of productivity improvements) to the economy and about 750,000 created, enabling some amount of net job creation.”

We never resisted the chance to laugh at Gordon Brown for conjuring up schemes which always promised round-number cash figures, usually of £1bn or £10bn or £100bn. It gave him a certain Dr Evil from Austin Powers quality, as we frequently pointed out.

Therefore it would be unfair not to point out that David Cameron appears to be going down the same path; yesterday the coalition promised a £1bn growth fund for regions hit by public spending cuts.

No matter that the money will probably come from existing budgets including the £1.4bn spent on regional development agencies.

Other recent examples of Cameron’s round figure tendencies include a promise of a £1bn energy smart meter programme; his £1bn plan to help marriage via a tax break; an Olympics-based marketing fund worth…..cue sinister laughter…£1bn.

UPDATE

One Labour frontbencher says the growth fund is ludicrous given that it will come from other budgets being decimated. “Why not set up a new £1bn health fund and dismantle the entire NHS at the same time,” he says. Then again, still a bit early for New Labour to question this kind of double-speak given that they excelled at it.

1. The claimant count has more than trebled from 700,000 in the late 1970s, costing the Treasury about £12.5bn a year.

2. About 40 per cent suffer from a mental illness or bad nerves. They are half as likely to find work as someone with a physical disability.

3. Around 40 per cent of existing claimants are “self certified”. A new stricter test was brought in last year.

4. The rejection rate has risen from around 35 per cent under to old test to 68 per cent under the new regime. The new test has only applied to new applicants but 40 per cent of them had claimed sickness benefit in the past.

5. Almost half of the 2.5m claimants are over the age of 50. Some 900,000 claimants are expected to die or take the state pension before the re-testing drive is complete.

6.The new test is projected to push more than a million claimants on the dole, steadily increasing the jobless claimant count to 3m by 2014.

7. Ethnic minorities represent just 6 per cent of claimants even though they represent 12 per cent of working population.

8. Around 5.5 per cent of claimants find a job every year. But there is no requirement to do so.

9. After a year on the benefit, the average length of claim is eight years. After two years on the benefit, a claimant is more likely to die or retire than find work.

10. The new test is expected to cut the cost of sickness benefits by around £1.5bn by the end of the parliament. But it will be difficult to find more savings, at least without cutting the level of benefit payments.

Analysts are starting to work through the implications of the looming squeeze on departmental spending. Whitehall is bracing for job cuts, but the raw numbers are still quite stark.

Take defence. George Osborne promised to spare the MoD from part of the 25 per cent cuts. But even a flat cash settlement — of 10 to 15 per cent cuts — would place heavy strain on the budget.

Malcolm Chalmers at RUSI has calculated what a 15 per cent cut would mean for personnel.

If, as our central scenario suggests, total real spending on personnel falls by around 13%, total personnel numbers would therefore have to fall by around 15% by 2014. Total personnel numbers would then be reduced from 283,000 to 240,000. If spread proportionately, this would lead to a 30,000 cut in military personnel numbers, together with a reduction in civilian personnel numbers of around 13,000.

At a time of war, announcing 43,000 job cuts is politically toxic. The MoD is no stranger to shedding staff — the size of the Defence Equipment and Support group in Bristol has fallen by more than 10,000 over the last few years. But the squeeze on numbers this time will be of a different order. Given around 40 per cent of the budget is staff costs, there is little alternative.