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Public sector employment in Scotland
11/06/2008
Scotland's Chief Statistician today published statistics on Public Sector Employment in Scotland. The publication provides statistics up to Quarter 1 of 2008 and covers all of the public sector as defined by UK National Accounts.
This provides a complete quarterly series from Quarter 1 1999 onwards. The quarterly data are not seasonally adjusted and therefore comparisons between years should only be made for the same quarter.
The main findings from Quarter 1 2008 are:
- In quarter 1 (Q1) 2008, there were 576,500 people employed in the public sector which is an increase of 49,200 (9.3 per cent) since 1999 but a decrease of 3,200 (0.6 per cent) since 2007
- The public sector currently accounts for 22.7% of employment in Scotland which has decreased from 23.1 per cent in Q1 1999 and from 22.9 per cent in Q1 2007
- Total full-time equivalent employment in Local Government (excluding Police, Fire and related services) was 229,500 in Q1 2008. This figure comprises: 58,100 teachers; 36,900 other education staff; 46,000 social work staff and 88,500 other staff
- The transfer of staff providing central services to the Scottish police forces to the new Scottish Police Services Authority (SPSA) has meant that a large number of staff who were previously employed by police boards are now classified as being employed by an NDPB. Over the year there has been a reduction of 3.6 per cent in police and related staff which will be caused mainly by the movement of staff to the SPSA
- The total number of full-time equivalent staff working in NDPBs and Public Corporations was 36,800 in Q1 2008. This is a decrease of 1.2 per cent since Q1 1999 and a decrease of 0.4 per cent since Q1 2007
The publication is also the official release of Scottish Local Government employment statistics. These were previously published by the Scottish Government in the Joint Staffing Watch Survey.
Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.