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Scottish Office

Answer

Mr. Menzies Campbell: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many staff by grade are employed as professional statisticians in his Department; how many of these staff have been accepted as fast stream by the Civil Service Selection Board; and how many have been granted chartered statistician status by the Royal Statistical Society. [81208] Mr. Dewar: [holding answer 23 April 1999]: Statistical work is undertaken by a range of specialists, including Research Officers, Economists and Statisticians. Since 1996, The Scottish Office has employed statisticians through its own departmental recruitment as well as through the Civil Service Selection Board. This resulted from a rapid growth in statistics posts coupled with a shortfall of recruits from the Civil Service Selection Board source. Withe my Department there are 36 statisticians recruited through the Civil Service Selection Board: 25 at Band C and 11 at Band B. There are also 13 statisticians at Band B who were directly recruited by the Department. All are managed by a chief professional officer at Senior Civil Service level: at the present time this post is vacant. Affiliation to the Royal Statistical Society is not mandatory and some members of staff may not have reported acquisition of Chartered Statistician status. There are four statisticians at Band C who are known to hold Chartered Statistician status.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

81208; 330 c173W;330 c175W

Session

1998-99

Subjects

Civil servants Government departments Staff Statistics Scottish Office Royal Statistical Society Civil Service Selection Board

Contains statistics

Yes