Cabinet secretary Simon Case has said in a letter to civil servants that the Government wants to cut up to 91,000 jobs within three years to save money. The civil service has grown a lot since 2016. Major changes like Brexit and the response to the pandemic created jobs which are not needed now. No 10 insists its approach is about ‘good housekeeping’, and more efficiency and automation will mean no cut in services. But where the numbers will be reduced is not clear. What would cuts to a big department like works and pensions or defence mean in practice? Although the civil service is often associated with Whitehall and the machinery of government, tens of thousands of people work on things like delivering benefits and keeping the courts running.