Civil Servants: Conditions of Employment
(asked on 24th November 2022) - View Source
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, how many and what proportion civil service staff are employed (a) on zero hours contracts, (b) on fixed-term contracts, and (c) via employment agencies broken down by Government Department.
The number of civil servants employed on zero hour contracts is not held centrally by the Cabinet Office. Zero hours contracts are not the normal practice within the Civil Service. Departments may use them in very limited circumstances to help meet exceptional or fluctuating demands on the business.
The number of civil servants by department on a fixed-term contract of up to 12 months, including those on casual contracts, is published quarterly by Office for National Statistics (ONS) as part of their quarterly public sector employment statistics and is available at:
An extract of the relevant data published by ONS is presented at Table 1 below. Information on civil servants on contracts of more than 12 and less than 24 months are not held centrally as these employees are counted as permanent in the statistics, in line with official ONS public sector headcount methodology.
Civil servants are employed by departments and their agencies and not by employment agencies. However, information on the numbers of employment agency staff working at departments are published by individual departments each month for transparency purposes on their gov.uk departmental webpages as part of their Monthly Workforce Management Information.
Table 1: Civil servants on temporary/casual contracts [1] as at June 2022
Department | Headcount | Full-Time equivalent |
Attorney General’s departments | 200 | 190 |
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy | 70 | 70 |
Cabinet Office | 10 | 10 |
Other Cabinet Office agencies | 40 | 40 |
Charity Commission | 20 | 20 |
Competition and Markets Authority | 20 | 20 |
Defence | 20 | 20 |
Digital, Culture, Media and Sport | 50 | 50 |
Education | 210 | 200 |
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs | 210 | 200 |
Estyn | 0 | 0 |
Export Credits Guarantee Department | 10 | .. |
Food Standards Agency | 30 | 30 |
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office | 60 | 60 |
Health and Social Care | 1,820 | 1,680 |
HM Land Registry | 10 | 10 |
HM Revenue and Customs | 560 | 550 |
HM Treasury | 30 | 30 |
Chancellor’s other departments | 0 | 0 |
Home Office | 1,220 | 880 |
International Trade | 0 | 0 |
Justice | 1,240 | 1,190 |
Levelling Up, Housing and Communities | 50 | 40 |
The National Archives | 20 | 20 |
National Crime Agency | 0 | 0 |
Northern Ireland Office | 0 | 0 |
Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills | 20 | 20 |
Office of Gas and Electricity Markets | 150 | 150 |
Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation | 20 | 20 |
Office of Rail and Road | .. | .. |
Office of the Secretary of State for Scotland | 0 | 0 |
Office of the Secretary of State for Wales | .. | .. |
Ofwat | 10 | 10 |
Transport | 580 | 550 |
UK Statistics Authority | 120 | 110 |
UK Supreme Court | 10 | 10 |
Work and Pensions | 3,520 | 3,450 |
Scottish Government | 1,940 | 1,450 |
Welsh Government | 30 | 30 |
TOTAL | 12,280 | 11,080 |
Temporary or casual employees are those with a fixed term contract of 12 months or less, or employed on a casual basis
Numbers are rounded to the nearest ten, and numbers less than five are represented by “..”. Data not available are represented by “-”.
Department totals include Executive Agencies, Ministerial and Non-Ministerial Departments
Source: Public Sector Employment Statistics, Office for National Statistics