I do not accept there is a staffing crisis in the Civil Service, though problems and pressures are certainly present, along with the broader challenge of recruiting and retaining high quality personnel in a competitive labour market.
The Deputy's reference to 1,794 vacancies in the 15 Departments – deriving from replies to recent parliamentary questions – needs to be put in context. These Departments have a workforce of 22,000 persons, and will always have vacant posts, reflecting gaps between the occurrence of vacancies and the filling of those vacancies. In addition, many outstanding vacancies are new posts and competitions to fill these posts inevitably take time to run.
The Civil Service Commission is responding to market challenges, and has eliminated past shortfalls in the supply of clerical officers to Departments. The bulk of departmental demands for clerical officers, currently amounting to 127 for the 15 Departments, will be satisfied in the very short term. The Commission has responded to other departmental demands by accelerating the throughput of candidates from existing competitions and by holding new competitions.
The starting pay of the two main general service recruitment grades has recently been revised to £12,667 for clerical officers and, depending on age, between £15,536 and £17,880 for executive officers. I consider these figures reasonable, but my Department will monitor their effect on recruitment and retention. The Civil Service has much to offer in the area of non-pay conditions. Family-friendly initiatives such as job-sharing and career breaks are already in place and, subject to talks with the unions, a major work-sharing initiative is expected to be launched next year. Statistics on the numbers of civil servants receiving family income supplement are not available.