Government Departments Taking Up to Four Months to Fill Vacancies
Ministerial departments in the UK take up to four months to fill vacancies, according to Freedom of Information requests submitted by recruitment software leader Bullhorn.
Bullhorn requested information on total recruitment spend in the financial year 2013/14, from the 24 government ministerial departments, and received complete information from nine of them. Five departments claimed it would be too expensive to compile the information (see appendix one) and no responses were received from the remaining departments. Bullhorn also requested information on the number of advertised vacancies in the last financial year, along with the percentage filled and the time they took to fill.
The results are as follows:
Recruitment spend in 2013/14 financial year by department:
Attorney General’s Office
2011/2012: £25,280
2012/2013: No response
2013/2014: £0
2014 Percentage change from last available data: -100%
Cabinet Office
2011/2012: £63,050
2012/2013: £253,463
2013/2014: £225,331
2014 Percentage change from last available data: -12%
Department for Education:
2011/2012: £108,231
2012/2013: £383,291
2013/2014: £317,926
2014 Percentage change from last available data: -19%
Department of Energy & Climate Change:
2011/2012: £222,000
2012/2013: £553,000
2013/2014: £836,000
2014 Percentage change from last available data: 41%
Her Majesty’s Treasury:
2011/2012: £235,000
2012/2013: £333,000
2013/2014: £264,327
2014 Percentage change from last available data: -23%
Department for Transport:
2011/2012: £87,984 (average across DfT agencies)
2012/2013: £102,926 (average across DfT agencies)
2013/2014: £58,055 (Department for Transport Central only)
2014 Percentage change from last available data: -56%
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills:
2011/2012: £464,114
2012/2013: £487,689
2013/2014: £715,070
2014 Percentage change from last available data: 38%
Office of the Leader of the House of Lords:
2011/2012: £40,156
2012/2013: £41,920
2013/2014: £58,126
2014 Percentage change from last available data: 32%
Department of Health:
2011/2012: £198,135
2012/2013: £132,605
2013/2014: £188,326
2014 Percentage change from last available data: 35%
Department for Culture, Media and Sport:
2011/2012: No data
2012/2013: No data
2013/2014: £247,506
2014 Percentage change from last available data: N/A
Number of positions advertised, average time taken to fill positions and percentage of positions filled in 2013/14 financial year by department:
Note: “Total positions open” figure includes internal and external positions except for Department for Education, which is only external
Attorney General’s Office:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 12
Average time to fill position (months): 3.92
Percentage of positions filled: 100%
Department for Business, Innovation & Skills:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 812
Average time to fill position (months): N/A
Percentage of positions filled: N/A
Department for Communities and Local Government:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 219
Average time to fill position (months): N/A
Percentage of positions filled: 89.04%
Department for Culture, Media & Sport:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 84
Average time to fill position (months): 3.10
Percentage of positions filled: 48.81%
Department for Education:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 79
Average time to fill position (months): 3.42
Percentage of positions filled: 97.47%
Department of Energy & Climate Change:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 663
Average time to fill position (months): N/A
Percentage of positions filled: 97.89%
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 334
Average time to fill position (months): N/A
Percentage of positions filled: 56.89%
Department of Health:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 116
Average time to fill position (months): 4
Percentage of positions filled: 79.31%
Home Office:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 6170
Average time to fill position (months): N/A
Percentage of positions filled: 52.43%
Office of the Leader of the House of Lords:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 74
Average time to fill position (months): 1.55
Percentage of positions filled: 90.54%
Northern Ireland Office:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 24
Average time to fill position (months): 3.8
Percentage of positions filled: 91.67%
Department for Work and Pensions:
Total positions open in 2013/14: 1315
Average time to fill position (months): 2.54
Percentage of positions filled: 59.47%
Bullhorn’s international MD Peter Linas says: “The results provide a fascinating insight into Whitehall’s recruitment efforts. We were shocked by some of the time-to-fill and percentage of positions filled figures posted by the ministerial departments. The fact the Department for Culture, Media & Sport has a fill rate of less than 50 per cent for example, and took an average of three months to find the right candidates for its open roles, is surprising.
“Recruiters reported average time-to-fill periods for their agencies ranged from six to 46 days in our UK trends report this year, depending on whether they were fulfilling temporary or executive placements – we shouldn’t be seeing waiting periods of up to four months before departments find the right candidates. Even though only three per cent of UK agencies considered time-to-fill their most important metric last year, it will certainly be important to these ministerial departments and there is clearly room for improvement. The agencies most effectively pooling their candidate databases and social media networks will triumph in future, as well maintained applicant tracking systems and CRMs provide recruiters with quality candidates in a time efficient manner.”
Appendix one
Department for work and Pensions
Ministry of Justice
Department for International Development
Home Office
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
-ENDS-
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