22 July 2005
Teachers, doctors, nurses and police officers accounted for just 27% of the 585,000 rise in public sector employment between 1998 and 2004, according to a new study.
Research released by the free-market Reform think-tank this week raises questions over government claims that Whitehall's £40bn efficiency drive will free extra cash for frontline services.
Corin Taylor, economics researcher at Reform, told Public Finance: 'In England's NHS, for example, the number of managers has increased three times as quickly as the number of nurses. These additional public sector resources have not even been used productively – Office for National Statistics figures show that productivity levels have decreased.'
Reform's figures follow confirmation from the ONS last week that public sector employment rose from 5.1 million in 1998 to 5.8 million in the first quarter of 2005 – an increase three times greater than in the private sector.
Much of the additional resources made available to the front line would come from Whitehall's savings drive, which could lead to an 84,000 reduction in civil service numbers, Chancellor Gordon Brown has said.
The latest ONS figures show an overall reduction in civil service numbers of 6,000 last year, and 11,000 since Gershon's 2004 report.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: 'This report provides strong evidence that the government is making progress towards its aim of releasing more resources to frontline services.'
Almost one in every four workers in Scotland is employed in the public sector, according to a parallel survey published by the Scottish Executive and the ONS.
The figures reveal that Scotland is one of the biggest public sector employers in Europe, with 23.5% of people in employment – 572,900 Scots – working for the state.
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