Taken from the Telegraph 18th July 2009
Why does Jack Straw need hundreds in HR?
While the private sector tightens its belt in the recession, at least one area of Westminster has undergone an astonishing expansion. Mandrake has discovered that more than 25 per cent of the civil servants at the Ministry of Justice work in "human resources".
By Richard Eden
Published: 9:54PM BST 18 Jul 2009
According to a Parliamentary Answer, Jack Straw's department, which was created only two years ago, employs a staggering 970 personnel staff, out of a total of 3,680 officials.
Robert Blevin, of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, tells me that a private company with a similar number of staff would be expected to employ about 40 people in human resources. "These figures do sound like a lot," he says.
The Justice Ministry is not the only offender. Four hundred of the Department for Work and Pensions's 5,650 staff work in HR. A similar-sized private company would employ around 60.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice says it is "unable to reconcile" the figures, which were compiled by the Office for National Statistics, with its own "management information".
The Ministry of Justice was created by merging the Department for Constitutional Affairs (formerly known as the Lord Chancellor's Department) with parts of the Home Office responsible for criminal justice policy, sentencing policy, probation, prisons and prevention of re-offending in England and Wales.
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