Public Sector Employment in Scotland Statistics for 2nd Quarter 2012

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 11,400 (2.3%), falling from 499,000 to 487,600, since Q2 2011. Chart 4 shows the make-up of the devolved civil service as at Q2 2012.

Chart 4: Breakdown of devolved public sector employment by category, Headcount, Q2 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 Q2 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 was revised in Q2 2011 to take into account this change.

The number of local government staff (including Scottish Local Authorities, Police Forces, Fire Boards, Valuation Joint Boards, and Regional Transport Partnerships) decreased by 7,000 (2.4%) down from 289,000 (in Q2 2011) to 282,000 (in Q2 2012).

Employment in the NHS decreased by 1,900 (1.2%) over the year, from 155,300 (in Q2 2011) to 153,400 (in Q2 2012). A detailed breakdown on this information by staffing group was published by ISD on the 28^th of August 2012. http://www.isdscotland.org/Health-Topics/Workforce/

Employment in further Education colleges decreased by 1,300 (8.2%) from 15,900 to 14,600 in Q2 2012.

Annual Employment also decreased in the following two categories:

• Civil Service down by 1,000 (5.4%) to 16,600
• Other Public Bodies down by 300 (1.9%);