Press Release - Recruiting civil servants
efficiently
13 February 2009
The National Audit Office has today reported that the processes
used by central government to recruit civil servants do not fully
deliver value for money. Departments are working to understand and
improve parts of the external recruitment process but more can be
done.
In 2007-08, central government recruited more than 40,000 new
staff, with 78 per cent for positions at junior grades in a diverse
range of areas such as job centres, courts, prisons, airports and
tax offices across the UK. The NAO’s analysis of how six
organizations recruit identifies three common issues: the costs of
staff used in the recruitment process are too high; the length of
the recruitment process is too long; and the quality of the
recruitment process needs to be improved.
There is no centrally held data on the cost of central
government recruitment programmes and organizations do not
accurately record the amount of time spent by staff who are not
part of the recruitment team; but the NAO has found the internal
staff costs of recruiting an individual vary from £556 to £1,921
per position. There is the potential to reduce these costs by up to
68 per cent, which could deliver savings in internal staff costs
across government of up to £35 million a year, without compromising
the quality of the candidates appointed.
Within central government, it can typically take 16 weeks to
recruit a new member of staff. Time could be saved by better
anticipating recruitment demands, using resources more effectively
and, where possible, standardizing the process.
There is little evidence that central government organizations
systematically test the quality or effectiveness of their
recruitment process.
Information on turnover of staff or surveys of candidates and
managers are not routinely used to identify the successes and
failings of the recruitment process.
The report identifies a range of possible ways of improving
external recruitment, ranging from better workforce planning and
the standardization of advertisements and job descriptions, to
tailoring the amount of resource used in recruitment to the type of
vacancy and sifting out unsuitable candidates at a much earlier
stage in the process.
Tim Burr, head of the National Audit Office, said
today:
"External recruitment is a key component of ensuring
that the civil service has the right skills and capacity to
deliver. Departments often pay too little attention to how they
manage the recruitment process. External recruitment currently
takes longer and consumes more internal staff time than it should.
Our report identifies a number of improvements which all
organisations can make which could deliver worthwhile savings
across government."
Notes for Editors:
- Central government employs half a million people and spends an
average of 55 per cent of running costs on staff. Civil servants
work in multiple locations across all regions of the United
Kingdom. In the first six months of 2008-09, there were almost
6,000 campaigns to fill almost 13,000 vacancies.
- Today’s NAO report focuses on the six largest employers in
central government: HM Revenue & Customs, Ministry of Justice,
Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry of Defence, HM Prison
Service and UK Border Agency. It looks at recruitment of all grades
of staff except the Senior Civil Service (i.e. Board level and
senior management positions) and Fast Stream graduate recruits.
Junior grades are those at Administrative Assistant (AA),
Administrative Officer (AO) and Executive Officer (EO).
- Press notices and reports are available from the date of
publication on the NAO website, which is at www.nao.org.uk. Hard
copies can be obtained from The Stationery Office on 0845 702
3474.
- The Comptroller and Auditor General, Tim Burr, is the head of
the National Audit Office, which employs some 850 staff. He and the
NAO are totally independent of Government. He certifies the
accounts of all Government departments and a wide range of other
public sector bodies; and he has statutory authority to report to
Parliament on the economy, efficiency and effectiveness with which
departments and other bodies have used their resources.
Press Notice 11/09
All enquiries to Mark Anderson, NAO Press Office:
Tel: 020 7798 7558
Mobile: 07796 937 119