UK.gov has shaved off 16% of IT staff in 4 years

The number of IT staff members working at four key Whitehall departments has fallen by 16 per cent in recent years.

According to figures from the departments, total IT headcount at the four organisations has dropped from 3,552 in 2008-09 to 2,971 in 2011-12.

The statistics were provided by the Ministry of Defence, the Department for International Development, the Department for Education and the Department for Transport in response to freedom of information requests by Guardian Government Computing.

IT staff at the Department for Transport were cut by 22 per cent, falling from 51 in 2008-09 to 40 in January 2012. The department also revealed that there had been no compulsory redundancies since 2008-09, but said that 10 employees had taken voluntary early retirement or severance in 2010-11.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) cut IT employees by 17 per cent during the same period. It had 3,220 IT staff in 2008, but 2,670 by the start of this year. The MoD also made tens of staff redundant over the four years: 20 in 2008-09; 40 in 2009-10; 10 in 2010-11; and between one and five in 2011-12.

ICT staff at the Department for Education dropped from 187 in 2009 to 163 by the end of 2011 – representing a 13 per cent dip. In contrast, the number of ICT staff at the Department for International Development has increased by 4 per cent in the last four years, rising from 94 in 2008-09 to the present figure of 98.

The figures from the four departments come in addition to recent statistics provided by many other major government departments and take the overall drop in ICT staff numbers across Whitehall to 13 per cent over the last four years, falling from 6,352 in 2008-09, to 5,526 in 2011-12.

This article was originally published at Guardian Government Computing.

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