THE number of full-time employees in the civil service has fallen by 11 per cent in the past year as a £700m voluntary exit scheme takes effect in Northern Ireland.
As of April 2016 there were 22,365 people full time equivalent employees in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, a reduction of almost 3,000 (2,786) in just 12 months. In the three preceding years those numbers fell by just over 1,000.
As a direct result the wage bill has also fallen slightly to the tune of over £40,000, as redundancy packages are factored into the overall amount.
The government data includes permanent and temporary staff in the 12 ministerial departments, the the Public Prosecution Service, the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland, the Office of the Attorney General for Northern Ireland, staff of The Assembly Ombudsman for Northern Ireland/ The Northern Ireland Commissioner for Complaints and the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry Team. The figures exclude staff who are on a career break or on secondment to other organisation.
A system offering voluntary exit from the civil service, as well as a separate mechanism for releasing members of the wider public sector, was established following the 2014 Stormont House talks.
Last year the £700m Westminster funded voluntary scheme began, with the aim of cutting Stormont's budget by shedding full-time civil service posts.
In January the head of the civil service said that around 10,000 public servants in the north were expected to leave under the exit arrangements.
Dr Malcolm McKibbin said the posts, which will be shed over four years was part of a "reform programme of unprecedented scale"
"We will reduce the size of the civil service and the wider public sector in a manner which allows us to continue within our budget," he said.
