§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is expected to be the new establishment for civil servants employed by the local authorities after local government reorganisation and how this compares with the establishment before reorganisation.
§ Mr. John SilkinThis information is not available. It is for each individual local authority to decide on its own management structure and desirable complement and to recruit the staff it needs from time to time. The number of staff actually in post may fall short of complements, however, in both old and new authorities. The initial recruitment of staff for the new authorities has been carried out within terms laid down by the Local Government Staff Commission essentially as a redeployment of existing staff. There are also shortages in many categories of staff—which have prevented the old authorities staffing up to complement—and there will be severe practical limitations on the number of staff the100W new local authorities will in fact be able to employ.