Departments reduced their spending on HR functions by seven per cent per head between March this year, according to government data scrutinised by Civil Service World. The reduction came at a time when headcount numbers were also falling, but the drop in spending was greater than the drop in full time equivalent (FTE) employees.
The number of FTEs in departments fell by two per cent between the last quarter of 2009-10 and the first of 2011-12, while average HR spending per FTE fell by seven per cent, according to information published by departments last month.
Civil Service World studied the figures as part of a special report looking into management information published with business plans in May 2011, and Quarterly Data Summaries (QDS), which update this information as well as providing indicators of progress against key business plan objectives.
Our research looks at which departments are spending the most on HR per FTE, and shows how far HR spending per FTE has decreased since 2009-10.
The data, however, comes with some fairly large caveats. Although the documents follow a template and definitions set out by the Cabinet Office each document also contains a warning stating that: “Many of the measures are not yet directly comparable because they do not have common definitions, time periods or data-collection processes.” For corporate services costs such as HR and finance, for example, the Cabinet Office specified that departments could either use the definitions set out in the Treasury’s Operational Efficiency Programme, or their own definitions. This leaves the door wide open for variations in the data, before we even begin to consider the different ways in which departments report and collect their financial information.
There is also a qualification that the data is based on management accounts rather than audited financial statements, and since it is quarterly data it does not compare easily with other data published in annual accounts or by the NAO. Armed with these caveats, CSW waded into the information, looking at a few key areas to consider what the data tells us about corporate services and transparency across Whitehall.
http://bit.ly/rSVHyV">Click here to read more about HR spending data in our special report .
Last updated 197 days ago by Civil Service World
