Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, pursuant to the Answer of 1 July 2019 to Question 269807 on HM Courts and Tribunals Service: Staff, if he will publish the information for March 2019.

The number of agency staff in HMCTS was 2,623 as of March 2019, which was 14.15%. The earliest held comparable data is from 2016 and shows 1,569, which was 8.5% of the staffing numbers. This is an increase of 1,054 over this period (or 5.65% of total staffing numbers). However, this is a 0.45 percentage point decrease from the previous year (March 2018). The following tables show a breakdown by grade as requested.

We were unable to provide data from 2010 as HMCTS did not exist in its current form until 2011. Prior to this there were multiple business units that held their own people data. We are unable to obtain agency data from HR systems prior to 2016. As with any large data system, there are also likely to be some inaccuracies.

Over the period of Reform, we expect the shape and size of the organisation to change. As part of this we are reducing our staffing levels and expect the future skills of our people to change. The HMCTS workforce strategy during this period is to increase the capability of our staff, whilst simultaneously increasing our workforce flexibility through the increased usage of contingent labour. This is in order to reduce redundancy costs and protect the jobs of longer serving, permanent staff. The required staffing level needed across each of our HMCTS sites is monitored closely, and proactive recruitment undertaken to ensure these levels are maintained.