§ Mr. Eggarasked the Secretary of State for Defence what was the saving in wages and salaries of civil servants achieved through the staff reduction in the three years since 1 April 1979; and what is the current annual rate of these savings for 1982–83.
§ Mr. PattieThe total saving in wages and salaries of civil servants achieved through the staff reduction over the three years since 1 April 1979 was £266 million on United Kingdom-based civilians and £39 million on locally engaged civilians overseas. The annual rate of savings for 1982–83 at printed Estimate prices is £221 million on United Kingdom-based civilians and £25 million on locally engaged civilians.
§ Mr. Eggarasked the Secretary of State for Defence what has been the annual reduction by number and percentage in his Department since 1 April 1975.
§ Mr. PattieI have assumed that the hon. Member is referring to civilian employees. The figures are as follows: 131W
Date United Kingdom-based staff Locally-engaged staff Per cent. Per cent. 1 April 1975–1 April 1976 478 0.2 5,493 11.0 1 April 1976–1 April 1977 7,590 2.9 2,352 5.3 1 April 1977–1 April 1978 8,263 3.2 2,204 5.2 1 April 1978–1 April 1979 2,698 1.1 1,797 4.5 1 April 1979–1 April 1980 7,858 3.2 1,762 4.6 1 April 1980–1 April 1981 10,217 4.3 1,162 3.2 1 April 1981–1 April 1982 12,647 5.5 508 1.4 Percentage reductions are expressed as a percentage of the strength at the beginning of each financial year.
§ Mr. Eggarasked the Secretary of State for Defence what was the number of staff in his Department on 1 April 1979 and 1 April 1982; and what was the total reduction in staff between the two dates and expressed as a percentage of the 1 April 1979 strength.
§ Mr. PattieThe actual strength at the two dates in question were:
1 April 1979 1 April 1982 United Kingdom-based staff 247,660 216,921 Locally-engaged staff 38,204 34,795 True reduction over this three year period* 30,722 3,432 (12.4 per cent.) (9 per cent.) * Allowing for some small transfers of functions.
§ Mr. Eggarasked the Secretary of State for Defence what is the number of redundancies that have occurred since 1 April 1979; and what is this number as a percentage of (a) total reductions achieved and (b) of the strength at 1 April 1979.
§ Mr. PattieIt is our policy to minimise redundancies as much as possible by such measures as control of recruitment, early retirement and redeployment of staff. Some redundancies have, however, been unavoidable. The latest figure of the total number of redundancies since 1 April 1979 is 3,143. This is 10.2 per cent. of total reductions and 1.3 per cent. of total strength at 1 April 1979.