“Instead of a quick turnaround of Civil Service vacancies with the best applicants, there seems to be general apathy.  For example, no data is held centrally on the cost of recruitment programmes.  It is typical for a department to have to wait 16 weeks for a new member of staff to be appointed.  What’s more, the appointment process costs taxpayers £35 million a year more than it should”.

“It is these men and women who will be at the sharp end of delivering services to the public.  Government departments should take the recruitment of junior civil servants far more seriously”.

Mr Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, was speaking as the National Audit Office published its report into recruiting civil servants effectively today.  In 2007-08, central government recruited more than 40,000 new staff, 78 per cent of which took positions at junior grades in a diverse range of areas such as job centres, courts, prisons, airports and tax offices across the UK.  

The report finds that the costs of staff used in the recruitment process are too high; the length of the recruitment process is too long; and the quality of the recruitment process needs to be improved.  Additionally, there is no centrally held data on the cost of central government recruitment programmes and there is the potential to reduce these costs by up to 68 per cent, which could deliver savings in internal staff costs across government of up to £35 million a year without compromising the quality of the candidates appointed.

The report also finds that, within central government, it can typically take 16 weeks to recruit a new member of staff.

13 February 2009
 

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See also:
NAO REPORT: Recruiting civil servants effectively

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