WIREDGOV

Civil Service Staff numbers for April 2002 were published today. At 1 April 2002, the number of permanent Civil Servants was 490,220 (full-time equivalents). This was an increase of 10,220 or 2.1 per cent on six months earlier. There was, however, a decrease of 930 in the number of casual staff between October 2001 and April 2002.

Taking permanent and casual staff together there was an increase of 9,290 or 1.9 per cent in comparison to October 2001 figures.

In the complete year to April 2002, the number of permanent staff increased by 7,540 or 1.6 per cent. There was a rise of around 300 in the number of casual staff, so the overall level of staffing increased by some 7,840 or 1.6 per cent.

Over the six-month period to April 2002, numbers of full-time staff increased by 7,280 and the number of part-time staff increased by 4,290 bringing total staff numbers on a headcount basis to 516,020. Part-time staff represented 14.9 per cent of all Civil Servants, up from 14.4 per cent six months before and 13.8 per cent in April 2001.

Main Changes in Departments and Agencies
Organisational changes during the six months to April 2002 include: - Within Department for Work and Pensions, Benefits Agency merged with the Employment Service to form Jobcentre Plus and the Pension Service was also launched.
- Intervention Board merged with DEFRA Regional Service Centres to form the Rural Payments Agency.

Significant changes in permanent staff numbers in the six months to April 2002 include:
- DWP - up 7,000. Staff have been recruited:-
- in Jobcentre Plus to backfill for training and the testing of new initiatives arising from the welfare modernisation programme, - in Child Support Agency because of increased workloads and for the delivery of Child Support reforms,
- into the early Pensions centres prior to the official creation of the Pension Service.
- Inland Revenue - up 1,200, staff have been recruited due to increased workloads and the preparation for the new Tax Credits. - Land Registry - up 280 to replace resources lost through natural wastage.
- FCO - up 100 to meet the departments objectives and fill vacancies. - OFT - up 80 to cover the additional work following new EU legislation and UK Laws.

Variations in casual staffing levels can be attributed to the local needs of departments.

Diversity in the Civil Service

Diversity figures as at 1 April 2002 show:
- 267,330 staff working in the Civil Service were women; 51.8 per cent of staff in post, compared with 51.3 per cent in October 2001. - New categories for ethnic monitoring were introduced in the 2001 Population Census. The main change was the introduction of a 'mixed' ethnic group category. Following this a re-survey of the ethnicity of Civil Service staff was launched in 2001 to improve data quality and to enable comparison with new national population data. The re-survey exercise was introduced after extensive consultation and work with departments and agencies, unions, the Office for National Statistics, and the Commission for Racial Equality. The data from this re-survey exercise is being reported for the first time in these statistics and is showing that the proportion of staff who are from ethnic minority groups on the new basis is now around 7.6 per cent. Data from the Labour Force Survey for Spring 2002 shows that, on a comparable basis, 6.5 per cent of the UK economically active were from ethnic minority
- The proportion of staff known to have a disability increased to around 3.6 per cent from 3.1 per cent in October 2001. The Ministry of Defence do not consider their current figures sufficiently accurate for inclusion in the overall Civil Service figure on this occasion. The exclusion of this data for MoD affects the proportion of people recorded as having a disability in the Civil Service as a whole. MoD have supplied a weighted estimate of numbers of disabled staff in an attempt to correct for missing data and provide a best estimate of their current position; if these figures are included, the proportion of Civil Service staff with a disability is 5.0 per cent.
- These statistics on ethnic background and disability should, however, be interpreted with caution, particularly year on year changes. Information on Ethnic Origin and Disability are collected on voluntary, self-classification questionnaires and there are a considerable number of non-respondents.

NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The headline staffing figures are full-time equivalents and give appropriate weight to the hours worked by part-time staff in calculating full-time equivalents. On average, a part-time employee works for 3.3 days a week. Figures quoted in the news release are rounded.

2. Staff employed in the Scottish Parliament are not included in these figures. Like the Westminster Parliament, the Scottish Parliament is not part of the Civil Service.

3. Tables showing staff in post numbers at 1 April 2002 by department and by agency are available from 020 7276 1532 or on the website address below. They give figures for permanent and casual staff, split into Industrial and Non-Industrial, showing the numbers on a Full-Time Equivalent and Headcount basis. Civil Service summary staffing statistics are published twice a year, for April and October. Details of the numbers of staff in each department and executive agency are placed in the Libraries of the two Houses and made available on the Internet at:
www.civil-service.gov.uk/statistics

4. More detailed statistical information about Civil Service staff is published annually. Civil Service Statistics 2001, relating to the year to 1st April 2001, was published in June 2002 and is available on the Website above.

5. National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.

Cabinet Office Press Office, 70 Whitehall, LONDON SW1A 2AS Cabinet Office press notices are available on the World Wide Web: http://www.nds.coi.gov.uk/coi/coipress.nsf