The advice came from Vicki Daniel, director of management consultancy Change2020, who said she was concerned at the stress levels in government agencies.

“From a talent perspective, it is crucial for the downsize to be handled properly,” she said.

“The main risk otherwise is that productivity will significantly drop further down the line, once the cuts are made, at a time when it should really fire up to get business back on track.

“Reforms are mooted and restructures are mooted and it takes an age for them to actually flow through, and what happens is morale diminishes, fear rises, people start jockeying and there is terrible political upheaval." Ms Daniel said.

“By the time the restructure or the downsizing comes around – and I'm not saying it is unnecessary – the damage done to the organisation’s culture and morale is huge.

“The built-up tension and pent-up resentment towards the cuts is quite long-lasting, so once the cuts are made, you have morale implications for many, many months afterwards.”

Ms Daniel said her experience was that private sector companies did restructures much quicker than the public service.

“There are always morale implications but people seem to move forward more quickly,” she said.

“The point I am trying to make is, cut quickly to diminish the impact on morale but then make sure you do invest in morale and team building later or else you will have terrified people who aren't as productive as you want them to be, anyhow. so that almost defeats the purpose of the cuts.

“Too often, we see management make cuts by reducing staff numbers with the only aim to reach a magic number of people. This is not a good approach.

“A restructure should be done properly, by identifying the core business focus and the right people to reach the business objectives.

“It is more important to build a strong team where each member works in cohesion towards these objectives, than to just cut according to a first-in, first-out rule, for instance.

“The morale implications are always bigger in the public sector, as people realise that job security is diminishing for them, too.

“Quite often, some 18 months on, staff are still talking about the reforms undertaken, rather than moving on.

“It’s important not to let people and negative thoughts hang around the business. Decisions must be made quickly.”

“One of the things I've noticed is if you are constantly talking about efficiency drives and cutting, you blindfold people to some of the positives, such as looking at better service or more innovative ways of doing things, to balance the workload more efficiently,” Ms Daniels said.