The Office for National Statistics’ latest annual data snapshot of the home civil service has revealed the modest upturn in headcount recorded last year has turned into more substantial growth, with ranks swelling by more than 10,500 – leading to a shift in the age profile of officials.
Figures show that as of March 31 this year the civil service had 331,392 full-time staff, an increase of 3.2% on the previous year, while there was also an increase of 447 part time employees, or 0.5%. Taken as a whole the hiring drive represents growth in numbers of 2.5%, up from the 0.3% recorded last year, however the figure is still 18% lower than in 2008.
The overall increase in numbers – driven in part by the demands of Brexit and the new homes and Grenfell Tower challenges faced by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government – has led to the age profile for the civil service getting younger , with an increase in those aged in their 20s by 13.4%, and an increase in those aged 30 to 39 years by 2.9%. There was also increases in the proportion of civil servants in the 50 to 59, 60 to 64, and 65-plus age bands, but a fall of 2.8% (3,140 employees) in the number of employees in age band 40 to 49 years – a shift Gavin Freeguard, head of data and transparency at the Institute for Government, called a “march of the millennial civil servants” in Whitehall.
“After years of recruitment freezes, the civil service is getting younger again – 13% of all civil servants are under 30, nearly back to 2010 levels (14%),” he said.
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The ONS data also showed that the employment increase is not shared equally across government grades. The number of civil servants working at higher ranks grew, with a 7.8% growth at senior- and higher-executive-officer level, an increase in numbers of 7,298; growth of 10.3% among grade 6 and 7 staff – reflecting a headcount increase of 4,243; and a 7.7% increase in Senior Civil Service roles, with 395 more staff employed at that level.
Conversely, the number of people working as administrative officers and assistants – the service’s lowest ranks – decreased by 1,200, or 0.8% compared with March 2017, while numbers at executive-officer grade, the next level up, were down by 670, or 0.6%.
The ONS said median gross annual pay for civil servants was £26,610 as of March 31 this year, excluding overtime and one-off bonuses. It said the figure represented a 2.7% increase on the previous year, cautioning that the figure would have been impacted by reductions in administrative officer and executive officer numbers.
Elsewhere in the snapshot, the ONS flagged moderate progress with reducing the gender-pay gap, which was down from 12.7% in 2017 to 12.2% in 2018 – however the drop was smaller than the previous year’s fall: the gap stood at 13.6% in 2016.
In the Senior Civil Service, the gender pay gap actually grew, increasing from 11.5% to 15.0% for part-time staff and from 4.2% to 5.5% for full-time staff.
Diversity data showed increasing numbers of Black and Minority Ethnic staff as well as disabled staff. The proportion of civil servants describing themselves as BAME increased from 11.6% to 12.0%. In the 2011 Census, 14% of the UK population said they were BAME.
The ONS said 10.0% of civil servants described themselves as having a disability, up 0.1% on the previous year.
Potentially embarrassingly for a government that stood on an election manifesto that pledged to relocate civil servants from the capital, the ONS figures also indicate that London has seen the biggest growth in civil servant numbers of anywhere in the UK, with a staffing increase of 5,450 over the year.
On a nation-by-nation basis, only England and Wales saw net gains in civil servant numbers. Civil service employment decreased in Scotland by 0.2% to 43,120, and by 5.8% to 3,540 in Northern Ireland.
Freeguard said the latest statistics showed the civil service staffing up in a way that reflected a paraphrasing one of French electronic pop duo Daft Punk’s best-known songs: “bigger, younger, senior-er, diverser, Londonier”.
The growth in the number of London-based civil servants seemed at first glance to be driven by an increase of nearly 2,300 at Cabinet Office and rises at the Department for Exiting the European Union, the Department for International Trade, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, he said.
Despite its gender pay-gap issues, Freeguard added the SCS’s gender balance was continuing to improve. “Forty-three percent of all civil servants at SCS or equivalent are women – a record high,” he said. “[It’s] also improving at levels below [which provides a] pipeline of future leaders.”
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, said the latest dataset contained a range of stark facts about the state of the civil service in 2018 that had the need for proper resourcing and fair pay at their roots.
“It is clear the gender pay gap that still exists is down to institutionalised discrimination,” he said. “The solution to this is a coherent set of pay arrangements at national level across the civil and public services.
“The government should provide funding, not only to give civil servants a hard earned pay rise after years of pay restraint, but also to eradicate the disgraceful inequalities that exist within the current system.”
Serwotka added that ministers were “beginning to realise” that it was not possible to deliver quality public services and Brexit with no staff, and suggested a return to national pay bargaining across the civil service instead of “the current 200 plus bargaining units”, which he said helped to fuel inequalities.
“We urge the government to engage with us in meaningful negotiations on what a properly staffed civil service should look like,” he said.
“In particular, the government should be recruiting in revenue collecting departments. Those jobs would be self-financing and would significantly close the tax gap – strengthening the country’s finances.”