Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 2nd Quarter 2012

Public Sector Employment in Scotland: Statistics for 2nd 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).

Some of the key points are as follows:
(based on headcount)

• In Q2 2012 there were 580,100 people employed in the public sector in Scotland, a decrease of 16,700 (2.8%) since Q2 2011.
• There were 2,465,000 people in employment in Scotland in Q2 2012 a decrease of 1.0% from 2,489,000 in Q2 2011. In Q2 2012 public sector employment accounted for 23.5% of total employment, down from 24.0% in Q2 2011 and down from 24.3% in Q2 1999 (In 1999 financial institutions were not included in the public sector).
• Of the total 580,100 people employed in the public sector in Scotland, 487,600 (84%) is accounted for by public sector employment devolved to Scotland and 92,600 (16%) relates to reserved public sector employment.
• Total employment in the devolved public sector has decreased from 499,000 in Q2 2011 to 487,600 in Q2 2012, a decrease of 11,400 (2.3%) over the year. Employment has decreased in all sectors of the devolved public sector.
• The decrease in employment in the devolved public sector has been driven by a decrease in total local government employment decreased by 7,000 (2.4%) over the year to Q2 2012, employment in the NHS decreased by 1,900 (1.2%) and employment in further education colleges decreased by 1,300 (8.2%).
• Employment in the reserved public sector (located in Scotland) has decreased by 5,300 (5.4%) since Q2 2011. Within the reserved public sector the largest changes were for Public Sector Financial Institutions decreasing by 1,800 (5.4%) and the civil service category decreased over the year by 1,700 (5.5%) to 29,400.
• Within the reserved public sector, this decrease included: Ministry of Defence decreasing by 1,000 (17.4%) and Department for Work and Pensions decreasing by 500 (4.2%).
• If banks were not included in the series:
  • Total public sector employment would have decreased by slightly less, 14,900 (2.7%), instead of 16,700 (2.8%) over the year.
  • Employment in the reserved public sector in Scotland would have decreased by 3,500 (5.5%) instead of by 5,300 (5.4%) over the year.

N.B. Financial institutions are not included in the devolved public sector total.

Public Sector Employment websection

In addition to this National Statistics publication, there is also a Public Sector Employment Statistics websection - http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/PublicSectorEmployment

This contains more detailed information including:

• Employment levels for public bodies in Scotland.
• Local government employment by local authority for the current quarter. A time series of total local government employment back to Q3 1999 shown for: police and related services and fire and related services separately and back to Q1 2011 by gender
• Links to the UK Public Sector Employment Statistical Bulletin (which contains estimates of public sector employment across each government office region) and other related technical papers.
• Detailed tables showing a full time series of data - all quarters back to Q1 1999 - are also available to download.
• Background notes outlining the methodology used to compile this series.

Further methodology details can be found in background notes.
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Labour-Market/PublicSectorEmployment/SourcesDef

Notification of revision in December publication

We have been carrying out a review of SG Core and Public Bodies in Scotland, as a result of this review there will be some small changes to the definitions used for these parts of the public sector and this will have a small impact on our historical time series.