UK's bureaucrats told to shape up or face the sack

Civil servants who are ''lazy'' but stay in their post ''year after year'' will face the sack unless they improve, the country's most senior civil servant said on Wednesday.

Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood said that the best civil servants are left "annoyed" by poorly performing colleagues who survive without any disciplinary action.

He said the bottom 10 per cent of civil servants, equivalent to 40,000 officials, will be offered the chance to improve or face losing their jobs.

Sir Jeremy said that while there is willingness to identify the top 25 per cent of good performers and give them proper rewards, it also just as important the bottom 10 per cent to get an opportunity to shape up or ship out.

"Nothing annoys good civil servants more than seeing lazy civil servants surviving year after year without anyone addressing that performance problem," he said.

Sir Jeremy was speaking as Francis Maude, the cabinet office minister, unveiled plans to allow ministers to hand-pick civil servants in their offices.

Under the plans, politicians will have the option of setting up an extended ministerial office to draft in staff that will be directly accountable to them.

Maude said there is no "upper limit" on the number of appointments ministers could make, but suggested that extended offices in major departments could have as many as 20 staff.

It has already proved controversial and is opposed by unions, who have warned that it will make the civil service too political.

Maude, however, insisted that the civil service would be protected.