Scotland’s Public Sector Workforce

Audit Summary

Publication Date:
November 2013

Audit Office:
Audit Scotland

Link to full report:
http://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/docs/central/2013/nr_131128_public_sector_workforce.pdf

To assess if public bodies are effectively managing changes to their workforces.
The specific objectives were to determine:
- How will the size and structure of the public sector workforce change between April 2009 and March 2015?
- What were the financial costs and benefits of changes to the public sector workforce and are the changes likely to provide long-term cost reductions?
- Did the workforce planning approaches that public bodies used follow good practice and include assessments of capacity and capability to ensure that the workforce can meet future needs?

Reported staff costs reduced by £1 billion (eight per cent) to £12.7 billion, between 2009/10 and 2011/12. Some staff who transferred to arm's-length and other non-public sector bodies are still being paid indirectly through public funds.
Each of the nine fieldwork bodies planned, at a service level, when changing their workforces. NHS bodies also produce single organization-wide plans, bringing together their service-level workforce plans.
Eight fieldwork bodies had used an early departure scheme but none had fully tested their schemes before using them. Fieldwork bodies did not routinely collect information on the costs and savings of their workforce change programs.
Public sector finances will be under pressure for the foreseeable future although this varies between sectors. Only 58 of the 80 public bodies surveyed were able to predict workforce numbers and costs for 2014/15.
Given the challenges ahead, public bodies will need to make further workforce changes. Without service reform these are unlikely to deliver the savings needed. Public bodies need to think differently about how they deliver services, for example by prioritizing and redesigning services and increasing joint working and collaboration.

The Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities should:
- work with public bodies to improve the consistency and accessibility of the data they collect on public sector employment and staff costs.
- provide strategic guidance on how bodies can redesign services and work better together to jointly plan and deliver services.
- improve strategic planning of public sector workforces to identify and plan for future skills needs, gaps and challenges across the public sector.
Where they have not already done so, councils, the NHS, the Scottish Government and central government bodies should:
- develop and use organization-wide workforce plans, informed by a series of service or departmental plans that are consistent in their structure and content. Senior managers and boards or elected members should scrutinize and monitor these plans;
- assess the impact of different terms and conditions on the likely costs and uptake of their schemes before they put a scheme in place;
- collect information on the costs and net savings from their workforce programs and report these details to boards and elected members;
- forecast expected staff numbers, skill needs and costs on a rolling three-year basis, using scenario planning where necessary; and
- make better use of existing mechanisms, such as community planning partnerships, to identify opportunities to share resources.