Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what proportion of Civil Service positions in 10 Downing Street were vacant for a week or longer in each year since 2010; and what the average turnover rate for civil servants in 10 Downing Street has been in each year since 2010.

The Prime Minister’s Office is an integral part of the Cabinet Office and is included in this reply.

Information about the proportion of Civil Service positions in my department that were vacant for a week or longer in each year since 2010 is not available and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.

The rate of turnover of civil servants in my department in each year since 2010 is as follows:

Year Turnover

2016 35%

2015 33%

2014 29%

2013 22%

2012 22%

2011 25%

2010 20%

The nature of much of the work in the Cabinet Office means that there has been an increasing requirement for short and medium term expertise to be brought in from other government departments, parts of the public sector and from outside the public sector to work on changing priorities over specific periods of time. Turnover has therefore been historically high in my department. 61% of civil servants who left my department during this period moved elsewhere within the government.

Increasing use of fixed term appointments in recent years and, in the last year the transfer out of a large number of staff to the Department for Exiting the EU, means that turnover has been high. A reduction in fixed-term appointments in recent months mean that we expect turnover to fall back over the course of the next year.