Civil service feels chill of Osborne’s austerity

The impact of austerity showed clearly in civil service statistics for the year to 31 March 2013.The figures showed that employment in the civil service continued to decline, while earnings barely grew.

Excluding Northern Ireland, net employment in the civil service was down by around 3% or almost 15,000 to 448,835, according to the figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Over the year, 31,570 people left — 7,780 through redundancy or severance, others through resignation or retirement — while 16,550 joined.

Annual gross earnings (median) rose by 2% but that reflected employment changes, in particular a “relative decrease in staff numbers at administrative responsibility levels and an increase in numbers at other management levels”, ONS pointed out.

None of the distinct staff groups saw median earnings rise by more than 1%, the figure for the biggest staff groups, administrative officers and assistants (44% of the workforce) and executive officers (26%).

Median earnings for higher and senior executive officers saw no increase, for grades 6 and 7 above them the rise was under 1%, while senior civil servants’ earnings decreased by 0.7%.

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/pse/civil-service-statistics/2013/stb-civil-service-statistics--2013.html