Despite devolution, number of federal govt employees has increased, cabinet told

ISLAMABAD: The federal cabinet has been informed that despite devolution, the number of federal employees has increased with statistics showing a sudden jump in the number of new entrants in 2016-17. However, for the first time in a decade, the present government has reduced the strength by 27,000 in 2019-20.

Official sources said that the cabinet was informed by Dr Ishrat Hussain that in 2010-11, the total number of federal employees was 829,000. This strength remained largely steady until 2016-17 when a sudden jump of 137,000 new entrants took place, raising the total number to 966,000.

Most of the new recruitment of 116,000 (85%), it is said, took place in the federal government (secretariat and attached departments) while the increase in the autonomous bodies was 21,000.

The cabinet was told not only to rationalize the officer to staff ratio in the government sector but also review the strength and structure of the civilian armed forces. The interior ministry has been asked to conduct this review.

It was said that the heavy concentration of support staff should be reviewed, and divisions should be advised to bring this ratio down to 1:3. For the rightsizing of government departments and agencies, it was also told that the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Implementation to abolish 71,000 posts lying vacant for a year or more may be ratified and this exercise repeated every year at the time of budget formulation.

About the impact of this reorganisation of the federal government as approved by the PTI cabinet in July2019, it was told the total employee strength in 2019-20 relative to 2018-19 has decreased.

The cabinet was told that there has been a decrease of 26,641 in the staff of the federal government and autonomous bodies in 2019-20. In terms of budgetary savings, the pay and allowances of the civil administration of the federal government show a decrease of Rs. 4 billion in 2019-2020 in nominal terms and a much large saving of Rs. 28 billion in real terms. The cabinet was informed that these savings do not include the savings of the autonomous bodies and the corporations.

The committee on restructuring and rightsizing of the federal ministries/divisions recommended in April 2001 to rationalize the officer to staff ratio of 1:3. However, this ratio has not been followed systematically. The average ratio has been 1:4. It was said that eleven divisions have a ratio of 1:6 or more than that and seven divisions have ratios below 1:3.

The cabinet was told that in view of the e-filing and e-office suite becoming mandatory in the federal secretariat, this ratio of 1:3 has to be enforced. Of the total number of federal employees, 95 percent belong to grades 1-16 or staff positions. Salaries and allowances paid to these employees account for 80-85 percent of the total wage bill of the federal government. The ratio of officers to staff has remained unchanged at 1:20. In the secretariat the ratio is 1:6.

The cabinet was also informed that 50 percent of the staff position were occupied by posts such as qasids, chowkidars, sweepers, gardeners, drivers, dispatch riders etc. The federal secretariat itself has 4,718 such staff constituting 38 percent of the total secretariat employees.

The federal government (secretariat and attached departments) had a total strength of 565,000 in 2019-2020. These include 13,000 in the secretariat, 8,000 in constitutional bodies and 544,000 in attached departments. In addition, 390,000 employees were working in autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies, corporations etc. The grand total of the civilian employees stood at 955,000.