Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 1st Quarter 2012

2. Public sector employment by devolved and reserved responsibility; Headcount (Table 3)

This section provides a summary of public sector employment in:

• Devolved public bodies which are the responsibility of the Scottish Government or Scottish Parliament;
• Reserved public bodies for which the UK Government has ministerial responsibility.

Of total public sector employment in Scotland, 491,100 (84%) covers people employed in devolved public bodies. This is a decrease of 21,700 (4.2%), down from 512,800 to 491,100, since Q1 2011. The fall in the last year is driven by a decrease in local government employment, down 10,000 (3.4%). Civil Service employment had also decreased by 7,400 (30.9%). It should be noted that employment in the civil service was significantly higher than usual in Q1 2011 due to 6,700 staff recruited to carry out the census.

There were 93,700 (16%) people employed in the reserved public sector in Scotland. This was a decrease of 5,900 (5.9%), down from 99,600 to 93,700, in the last year. Employment in the reserved public sector financial institutions decreased by 2,100 (6.1%) in the last year and the reserved civil service decreased by 1,700 (5.4%).

Overall public sector employment decreased by 27,600 (4.5%), down from 612,400 to 584,800 in the last year. Chart 3 below shows how this is split between devolved and reserved public sector.

Chart 3: Annual change (from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012) in public sector employment by devolved and reserved responsibility, Headcount