Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 4th Quarter 2012

5. Civil Service employment in Scotland; Headcount (Table 6, Table 7)

This section provides a summary of the civil service in Scotland.

The devolved civil service is made up of:

• Scottish Government Core Departments
• Scottish Government Agencies
• Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
• Non-Ministerial Departments

The reserved civil service is made up of:

• UK Government Departments
• Scotland Office

In Q4 2012 there were 45,400 people employed as civil servants in Scotland. This is made up of 16,400 (36%) people working in the devolved civil service and 29,000 (64%) working in UK government departments. The total number of civil servants has decreased by 1,700 (3.6%) over the year to Q4 2012.

Devolved Civil Service

The devolved civil service has decreased by 200 (0.9%) since Q4 2011. Chart 6 shows a breakdown of the devolved civil service in Scotland as at Q4 2012.

! Movement of staff between categories within the devolved civil service

When interpreting changes over time in the devolved civil service in Scotland it should be noted that due to organisational changes, staff have transferred between Scottish Government (SG) departments and agencies. This makes interpreting changes over time complicated.

The SG core departments now include staff who were previously classified as agency staff in 2008 and 2009.

The Scottish Courts Service (previously a SG agency) has been reclassified to a Non-Ministerial Department from 1 April 2010 as has the Scottish Housing Regulator in April 2012.

From 1 April 2011, National Archives for Scotland moved from being a Government Agency to form a new Non-Ministerial Department (National Records of Scotland) as part of a merger with GROS.

More detail about the above changes can be found in the background notes.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/PublicSectorEmployment/SourcesDef

Scottish Government Core

In Q4 2012, there were 5,100 people employed in SG core departments, representing 31% of the devolved civil service in Scotland. Over the year from Q4 2011, employment in SG core departments has decreased by 100 (2.7%).

Scottish Government Agencies

There were 6,700 people employed in Scottish Government agencies in Q4 2012. Employment in SG agencies has increased by 200 people (2.6%) over the year to Q4 2012. This increase is largely due to increases in the Scottish Prison Service.

Non Ministerial Departments

Non Ministerial Departments (NMD) include the National Records of Scotland, Registers of Scotland, the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator the Scottish Courts Service (SCS) and the Scottish Housing Regulator from (April 2012). In Q4 2012, there were 3,000 people employed in these NMDs. Over the year, employment in NMDs decreased by 200 (5.0%).

Employment in the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal decreased by less than 50 (1.6%) over the year to Q4 2012.

Chart 6: Breakdown of devolved civil service employment, Scotland, Headcount, Q4 2012

Reserved Civil Service

The reserved civil service has decreased by 1,500 (5.0%), from 30,500 in Q4 2011 to 29,000 in Q4 2012.

This has been driven by: Ministry of Defence decreasing by 900 (16.8%), HM Revenues and Customs decreasing by 500 (5.5%) and the Scotland Office decreased by 10 (10.7%). Other civil service decreased by 1,500 (33.0%), a result of staff transfers to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) from Q3 2012 onward; DWP saw a 1,300 (12.6%) increase over the year.

Chart 7: Breakdown of employment in the UK government departments as at Q4 2012.