Evidence of 5% reduction in civil servant headcount: FOI release

Information requested

During Joe Griffin's appearance in front of MSPs on June 24, he said about reducing the number of civil servants the “direction of travel” was to reduce this, telling MSPs: “We’re down some 5% over the course of the last three years."

Could you supply the evidence to back this up?

Response

All of the information you have requested is available from Scottish Government workforce statistics - gov.scot which are published on a quarterly basis. The 5% calculation can be evidenced as below, extracted from the spreadsheet available:

	Directly Employed Staff (Headcount)	Contingent Workers (Headcount)	Total
Mar-22	8846	2031	10877
Mar-25	9290	1075	10365

The total is rounded to 5%.

Since 2022, enhanced recruitment controls were introduced that have managed reductions in the total workforce. From March 2022 to March 2025, the total workforce has reduced by 5%. The reduction in the total workforce has prioritised reductions of the contingent workforce such as more expensive contractors and consultants.

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