§ Mr. McKelveyasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many jobs have been lost in local government in Scotland since May 1979.
§ Mr. Allan StewartPrecise comparisons involving dates before June 1981 are not possible because some local authorities until then omitted certain categories of workers from their Joint Manpower Watch returns.
Subject to this, returns for June 1982 suggest a reduction of about 3,200 staff—full-time equivalents—since June 1979, when about 258,000 staff were recorded, a reduction of just over 1 per cent. Reductions have been concentrated on manual workers and, because of falling school rolls, on teachers and other educational staff. The total figure thus conceals an increase in the number of non-manual staff, other than teachers and lecturers, by about 5,400 between June 1979 and June 1982.