Ivan McKee: “The proposals that we have put forward, in draft at this stage for further development, are not about centralisation…”

The fiscal challenges were part of the rationale for the reforms

If you look across the wider public sector, there are public bodies that have driven headcount reductions and have worked through the no compulsory redundancy policy to its conclusion.

Cuts is about doing less with less; efficiency is about doing the same or doing more with less because you're doing it more efficiently.

To be honest with you, the realpolitik of this is that people will exploit it, misrepresent it, frankly, tell lies about it.