UK Cabinet Office takes £7.8M hit to kill off recruitment system

The UK Cabinet Office has scrapped a recruitment platform, recording a £7.8 million loss, while disclosing a potential penalty of up to £8.9 million over its handling of contractors' tax status. The department's annual report for 2025-26 said the Civil Service Jobs Applicant Tracking System (ATS) Programme, a central government plan for a unified, cross-departmental hiring system, was being closed to "align with the Shared Services for Government Strategy," which the Prime Minister's