HC Deb 26 April 1999 vol 330 cc5-6W
Mr. Menzies Campbell

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff who have worked as professional statisticians in his Department have left on early retirement in each of the past 10 years. [81189]

Mr. Spellar

Early retirement for professional statisticians from the Ministry of Defence in the last 10 years has been as follows:

  • 1989: 0
  • 1990: 0
  • 1991: 0
  • 1992: 0
  • 1993: 1
  • 1994: 1
  • 1995: 2
  • 1996: 0
  • 1997: 0
  • 1998: 0.

There have been no early retirements in 1999. The early retirement figures include those professional statisticians who retired early on medical grounds.

Mr. Menzies Campbell

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence how many staff by grade are employed as professional statisticians in his Department; how many of these staff have been accepted as fast stream by the Civil Service Selection Board; and how many have been granted chartered statistician status by the Royal Statistical Society. [81194]

Mr. Spellar

The Ministry of Defence employs a total of 20 professional statisticians in the following grades:

  • Senior Civil Service: 4
  • Grade 6: 2
  • Grade 7: 12
  • Assistant Statistician: 2.

All were accepted as fast streamers by the Civil Service Selection Board.

Two of the four in the Senior Civil Service, including the Chief Executive of the Defence Analytical Statistical Agency, have been granted chartered statistician status by the Royal Statistical Society. Four other statisticians are Fellows of the Royal Statistical Society.

Notes

  1. 1. The definition of professional statisticians used to produce the figures is those staff who were recruited through the fast stream to the Statistician Group. These figures include professional statisticians who may currently be working in administrative posts.
  2. 2. These figures do not include any staff not in post, on career breaks secondment etc.
  3. 3. It is increasingly difficult to define what is a professional statistician. Departments recruit survey experts, research officers, social survey officers and others whose work has an input to Statistical work.

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