abcdefghijkl Public Sector Employment Statistics David McPhee, ASD, ETLLD

abcdefghijkl  Background  Sources of Data  Development of PSE statistics  Latest Data  Future of Publication

abcdefghijkl Background  Public Sector Employment Measured through the Labour Force Survey (LFS)  Self classification within LFS leads to overestimation of public sector employment (Approximately 100,000)  Caused mainly by those who work for private firms but in Public Building

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abcdefghijkl Other Sources of Data  Data on employment published for Health, Local Government, Civil Service  Data published on different basis for different time periods  No routine data published for NDPBs and public corporations

abcdefghijkl Development of PSE Statistics  UK wide development – Lead by request from Prime Minister  Development of more timely and more consistent PSE stats  Scottish Executive producing Scottish version due to high demand

abcdefghijkl Development of PSE Statistics  Existing statistics for Health and Local Government used (definitions harmonised)  ONS surveys used for NDPBs and Public Corporations  Civil Service Organisations provide direct return

abcdefghijkl Development of PSE Statistics  National Accounts definition used  Excludes GPs and GDPs as considered self employed  Excludes FE and HE as these are non profit organisations serving households

abcdefghijkl Development of PSE Statistics  First data published on 15 th July 2005  572,200 public sector employees – 23.4% of total employment  First data released as experimental data  No historic time trend

abcdefghijkl Latest Data  Historic time trend developed using modelled data for unknown quarters  Consistent with ONS’s modelling of PSE data  Full Series from Q – Q published on Friday 13 th Jan 2006

abcdefghijkl Latest Data  577,300 public sector employees accounting for 23.4% of total employment  Increase of 52,000 since 1999 compared to increase of 103,000 in private sector employment

abcdefghijkl Latest Data  Since 1999:  Local Government increased by 10%  PCs and NDPBs up by 10%  NHS employment up 16%  Civil Service employment up 6%  Police services up 17%  Fire Services up 2%  Armed Forces down 14%

abcdefghijkl Latest Data

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Press Coverage  “Big Brother getting bigger as one in four work for the state”  “Hordes of social workers swell public sector army”  “Anger as public sector staff grow”

abcdefghijkl Future of Publication  Possible Gender and FT/PT breakdowns  Health data published quarterly – No Longer projected  Publication of NDPBs and PCs on SE website  Publication of other data of interest alongside publication  Public Sector article looking at other sources