§ Mr. Marlowasked the Minister for the Civil Service, if she will publish in the Official Report the Lord Privy Seal's letter of 4 June to the hon. Member for Northampton, North, relating to redundancies of higher-paid civil servants.
§ Mr. HayhoeThe text of my right hon. and noble Friend's letter of 4 June is as follows
Barney Hayhoe promised in his reply to your question on 17 May about civil service redundancies that I would write as .soon as the information was collated.The table below shows the number of staff at Principal and equivalent level and above who have been prematurely retired in the public interest or who have left on voluntary early retirement in each of the last 3 years. Particular grade levels in the Open Structure (Under Secretary and above) have not been differentiated as this could lead to individuals being identified.
Non-industrial Home Civil Service: Premature Retirements Grade Level 1979 1980 1981 Open Structure and Executive Directing Middle and Lower Bands Bands 11 16 22 Assistant Secretary 18 28 60 Senior Principal 13 23 29 Principal 33 99 197 Total 75 166 308 Premature retirement 'in the public interest' covers redundancy and premature retirement on structural and limited efficiency grounds. At a time when manpower numbers are being reduced significantly we are, of course, putting increased emphasis on removing the less able first, so elements of redundancy occur in both structural and limited efficiency retirements. While the overall total shown in the table gives a more representative picture you may, however, wish to know that within this total the figures for those who left on technical redundancy grounds are 7, 16 and 90 for 1979, 1980 and 1981 respectively.
I have also included in the table figures stemming from the special Voluntary Early Retirement scheme which operated in 1980–81. This was aimed at helping departments achieve their required manpower reductions and led to 93 staff at this level leaving in 1980 and 38 in 1981."