TODAY we can reveal full details of the huge increase in the size of the Assembly Government civil service since devolution in 1999.
Figures released to the Western Mail show there has been an increase in the number of employees every year since 1999, with the total staffing level now well over double what it was then.
Last night business leaders contrasted the rise in civil service jobs with the way many private sector employers have shed jobs over the same period.
And they expressed astonishment at the size of the Assembly Government’s human resources department, which last year stood at 380.
In 1999 – the year the National Assembly was established – the pre-devolution Welsh Office had 2,358.7 full-time equivalent employees.
By the end of March this year the staffing complement had risen to 6,168.6.
The statistics supplied to us by the Assembly Government are broken down by department and grade.
In 2000, there were 84.72 highly paid senior civil servants. By March this year the total had risen to 160.3.
Between 2000 and 2010, the number of Band G employees – one pay rung down from senior civil servants – went up from 34.7 to 204.5.
The number of Band E employees – the senior executive officer grade – leapt over the decade from 162.35 to 969.8.
While in 2000 there were 611.42 Band C – executive officer – employees, by March this year there were 1,293.3.
Figures for 2000 also included staff employed by the legislative and committee side of the Assembly, while the figures for 2010 do not.
A formal separation of the two sides of the Assembly took place in line with the Government of Wales Act 2006, and a separate Assembly Commission employing around 300 people was established.
One of the most surprising statistics in the material released was the size of the human resources department, which at the end of March last year stood at 380.7 employees.
The department has since been subsumed into a new entity called People, Places and Corporate Services, which in March this year had 612.5 employees.
When the Western Mail asked Ian Price, the assistant director of CBI Wales, how many people he thought were employed in the Assembly Government’s human resources department, he said: “Between six and 10.”
When told the actual figure, he said: “It is beyond me to understand how the figure can possibly be that high. It seems an unbelievable figure.
“The other day I was talking to one of our members, whose company employs around 350 people and which has a human resources director and a human resources officer – just the two of them.
“They seem perfectly able to cope with the issues that arise in a workforce of that size.”
On the rise in the number of civil servants, Mr Price said: “Large organisations in the public sector have a tendency to grow.
“There is a lot of project work, and once the project is over people sometimes get taken on to the full-time staff.
“I think the Assembly Government has been used to big budget increases year on year at a time when many private businesses have not been so fortunate and have in some cases had to shed staff. The Assembly Government is going to face a huge challenge very soon, and they are not to be envied the task of dealing with the spending cuts. Situations where people lose their jobs are very emotive. I suppose it will be managers in the human resources department who will be dealing with this and having to make some of their own people redundant. It’s not going to be pleasant.”
Wyn Pryce, secretary of the West Wales Business Initiative, has been an outspoken critic of staffing levels in the Welsh public sector, advocating 40,000 public sector job cuts, and the diversion of funds to create jobs in the private sector.
He also said he was astonished by the size of the human resources department, and said: “When I worked at Ford between 1970 and 1975, there were 2,000 employees with a human resources department of about eight people.
“With the Assembly Government having around 6,000 employees, I would suggest 20 would be about the right number for human resources.
“I would be very surprised if Tesco, which must have a workforce numbered in six figures, had a human resources department of more than around 40 to 50 people.”
Mr Pryce said the size of the Assembly Government’s human resources department is “absolutely extraordinary”, and could not be justified.
“It’s clear that the Assembly Government is vastly overstaffed, and there needs to be a thorough investigation by the finance committee,” he said.
“Taxpayers and ratepayers have had enough, and will not put up with this kind of excess any longer.”
Caren Fullerton, the Assembly Government’s deputy director of human resources (business change) who sent us the figures, said in an accompanying letter: “Since 1999, 2,368 staff have joined the Assembly Government through mergers with other bodies including the Welsh Development Agency, Wales Tourist Board and Elwa (Education and Learning Wales).
“The evolving role of the Assembly Government has resulted in additional responsibilities being assumed as functions have transferred from other UK Government departments.
“The staffing complement has increased to accommodate this additional workload, often without sufficient, or in some cases any, additional funding being made available.
“Similarly, the Government of Wales Act has brought additional responsibilities which have had to be adequately resourced to enable the Assembly Government to deliver against its commitments.
“The analysis by department reflects the organisation structures that were in place as at the date of the analysis.
“There have been changes to structures and the responsibilities of departments in every year since 1999.
“For this reason, year-on-year comparisons of staffing numbers for individual departments do not always compare like with like.”
Asked to clarify what people working in the People, Place and Corporate Services Department (PPCS) do, a spokesman for the Permanent Secretary said: “PPCS combines four former departments, including HR.
“The new department, which is led by a single director general in place of the three individual directors in the previous structure, is responsible for delivering a wide range of services across the Assembly Government.
“These include IT management, corporate resilience, translation services, business change and strategy, project and programme management, knowledge management, Public Services Management Wales, estate management and Enabling Government.
“PPCS also provides internal consultancy support, which is particularly important as we minimise the use and cost of external consultants.”
