Nigel Stanley
The IFS data - which I looked at yesterday - also has a useful table showing which sectors have seen growth in public sector staff since 1997, and by how much.
The small-state right would like us to think that these were all pen-pushers – somewhat oddly as I doubt that many people in either the private or public sector have a pen as their main workplace tool any more.
And of course efficient public services need their share of administrators and managers too. I suspect most people would prefer to get a renewed passport on time, rather than be told we’ve shut the passport service down as it was full of bureaucrats.
But what the figures show is that by far the biggest growth in public sector staff has been in the health service. There are half as many doctors again working in the NHS as in 1997, and a 28 per cent growth in the number of nurses. I’ve added the final two columns to the IFS table, but they are simply another way of presenting the data. This shows that more than half the increase in public sector staff is in the NHS – and that fully 7 per cent of the growth in staff is made up of doctors. Given that they are pretty near the top of the earnings tree, it is not surprising that the cost per head of the public sector has increased.
After the NHS comes education who contribute 44 per cent of the increase.
Some sectors have shrunk, and others barely changed.
I guess that public administration is the category most likely to contain jobs likely to be considered pen-pushers, but the civil service has seen just one per cent growth – and public administration as a whole, which I assume includes local government, has grown by a modest 7 per cent.
The IFS rightly say that in the long term a lower cost public sector comes from a reduced headcount. These figures show just how painful that is likely to be.
| 1997 | 2008 | % change | actual increase | % of increase | ||
| National Health Service | 1,190,000 | 1,510,000 | 27% | 320,000 | 53% | |
| Of which: | ||||||
| Doctors (England) | 89,619 | 133,662 | 49% | 44,043 | 7% | |
| Nurses (England) | 318,856 | 408,160 | 28% | 89,304 | 15% | |
| Police | 230,000 | 285,000 | 24% | 55,000 | 9% | |
| Of which: | ||||||
| Police community support officers | – | 15,683 | – | 15,683 | 3% | |
| Education | 1,131,000 | 1,393,000 | 23% | 262,000 | 44% | |
| Of which: | ||||||
| Teachers (England &Wales) | 437,980 | 476,410 | 9% | 38,430 | 6% | |
| Teaching assistants (England) | 34,800 | 125,200 | 260% | 90,400 | 15% | |
| Public administration | 1,139,000 | 1,224,000 | 7% | 85,000 | 14% | |
| Of which: | ||||||
| Civil service | 516,000 | 522,000 | 1% | 6,000 | 1% | |
| Other public sector | 708,000 | 738,000 | 4% | 30,000 | 5% | |
| HM Forces | 220,000 | 193,000 | –12% | -27,000 | -5% | |
| Other health and social work | 436,000 | 380,000 | –13% | -56,000 | -9% | |
| Construction | 124,000 | 55,000 | –56% | -69,000 | -12% | |
| All public sector | 5,178,000 | 5,778,000 | 12% | 600,000 |
