Civil services statistics: how many public servants are there and what do they cost?

The civil service is in the firing line. George Osborne is planning cuts of 2% in civil service headcount per year. According to the National Audit Office (which published a report on civil service recruiting last year), in 2007-08, central government recruited more than 40,000 new staff, with 78% for positions at junior grades in a diverse range of areas such as job centres, courts, prisons, airports and tax offices across the UK. As part of the government's open data project, it has started releasing total headcounts for the civil service today - including the small faceless bodies that are included. So, the first round of data (which has some holes) shows that JobCentre Plus is one of the biggest employers in government: a headcount of 88,299 people - and a paybill of £2.1bn. HM Revenue and Customs employs 82,852 staff and has a higher paybill: £2.3bn. The spreadhseet also details consultants employed and temporary staff. The government says it will update it once a week. Interestingly, the Office for National Statistics already compiles civil service headcount figures - but without the same breakdown. Can you do something with the data? Download the data • DATA: download the full datasheet World government data • Search the world's government data with our gateway Can you do something with this data? Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at [email protected] • Get the A-Z of data • More at the Datastore directory • Follow us on Twitter Data summary