Bureaucrats: 'Not replacing frontline staff'

A leading centre-left think tank has defended the growth of public sector jobs since 1997.

Critics of the government's policies have argued that extra cash has been spent on bureaucracy and red tape rather than frontline services.

But a report published on Thursday by the Institute for Public Policy Research found that this has not been the case.

It concluded that most job growth had been in the frontline areas of health and education, rather than in backroom administrative staff.

It also argued that there has been "very little" change in the overall balance of public to private sector employment since 1997

And public sector employment remains a significantly lower share of the total than in 1992, the think tank said.

While there have also been concerns about the growth in public sector pay, the IPPR added that this had largely been due to the need to "catch up" following the pay restraint of the 1990s.

Faster rates of wage growth in the public sector are now likely to come to an end, the report found.

"Since 1998 the Labour government has significantly increased public sector employment in education and health care, but not in other areas," said the IPPR's Richard Brooks.

"The growth in public sector employment has not been driven by increased employment of central or local government administrative staff.

"As a result, a higher proportion of public sector jobs are now providing frontline services in health and education."

The study also says that recruiting and retaining key public sector workers would be aided by pay supplements at local, not regional, levels.