§ Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister for the Civil Service if he will state the latest convenient figures for the numbers of non-industrial civil servants as compared to 1969 and 1971.
§ Mr. Kenneth BakerThe number of non-industrial staff in post on 1st January, 1972, was 504,445 on the basis set out in the reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Fowler) on 9th February, 1972. The numbers on 1st January, 1969, and 1st January, 1971, were 470,580 and 499,690 respectively, but direct comparison is complicated by transfers in and out of the Civil Service such as the transfer in of 15,000 Post Office staff during 1969. A more informative comparison of the changes in the staffing of individual departments between January, 1971, and January, 1972, was given in the reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Ralph Howell) on 18th February, 1972.—[Vol. 830, c. 383–392: Vol. 831, c. 171–2.]