Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 1st Quarter 2012
The statistics in this release are based on administrative records and surveys of individual public sector bodies carried out by the Scottish Government and the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The publication includes information on public sector employment in Scotland with distinctions made for employment in devolved bodies and reserved bodies (located in Scotland).
3. Devolved public sector employment in Scotland; Headcount (Table 4)
This section provides a summary of devolved public sector employment which includes:
- Devolved Civil Service
(section 5 has more detailed breakdowns for the devolved civil service) - Local Government
(which covers Scottish Local Authorities, Police Forces, Fire Boards, Valuation Joint Boards, Bridge Transport Authorities and Regional Transport Partnerships) - NHS in Scotland
- Further Education Colleges
- Devolved Public Corporations
- Other Devolved Public Bodies
(which covers Non-Departmental Bodies and other bodies)
The number of people employed in the devolved public sector decreased by 21,700 (4.1%), falling from 512,800 to 491,100, since Q1 2011. Chart 4 shows the make-up of the devolved civil service as at Q1 2012.
Chart 4: Breakdown of devolved public sector employment by category, Headcount, Q1 2012
! Important Caveat
When interpreting changes over time in devolved public sector employment it should be noted that there has been movement of staff across categories which makes it difficult to monitor changes over time.
Employment in all devolved public sector categories decreased in the last year.
The Q1 2011 publication included further education colleges in Scotland as part of the devolved public sector for the first time. This followed the ONS re-classification of further education colleges in Scotland to the central government sector for the purpose of National Accounts. The reclassification was backdated to Q1 1999, so the full time series has been revised to take into account this change.
Employment in the devolved civil service fell by 7,400 (30.9%) over the last year. This large decrease was due to the inclusion of 6,700 temporary census field staff in Q1 2011. If the census staff had not been included in Q1 2011 then employment would have decreased only by 700 (4.2%). Number of NHS staff decreased by 2,500 1.6%.
The number of local government staff (including Scottish Local Authorities, Police Forces, Fire Boards, Valuation Joint Boards, and Regional Transport Partnerships) decreased by 10,000 (3.4%) down from 294,200 (in Q1 2011) to 284,300 (in Q1 2012).
Employment in the NHS decreased by 2,500 (1.6%) over the year, from 156,900 (in Q1 2011) to 154,400 (in Q1 2012). A detailed breakdown on this information by staffing group was published by ISD on the 29th of May 2012. http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/
Annual Employment also decreased in the following two categories:
- Other Public Bodies down by 600 (3.9%);
- Further Education colleges down by 1,200 (7.6%).
Information for further education colleges in Scotland is based on actual information from Q4 2010. Information has been modelled prior to this. The method used to create the back series is detailed as part of the background notes for this publication.
Contact
Email: Gayle Mackie
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