Overall, there has been a long-term downward trend in public administration employment over the last two decades. This was caused partly by the introduction of new technologies and automation of some areas of service provision together with contracting out.

In the short to medium term, however, additional resources for health and education are likely to result in increased employment opportunities in public administration in these sectors, and this will build on recent sharp increases in employment in both central and local government.

Policy initiatives and political changes will also affect future employment in the sector, for example:

• The national e-government strategy aims to have all public sector services available electronically by 2005. The influence this will have on future employment cannot yet be estimated. More information on the development of the e-government is available on the Cabinet Office’s e-Government Unit website and on the Employers’ Organisation for local government website.
• There is also some movement towards regional governments in England. 
• A programme of civil service reform is being inplemented by all governmental departments and agencies across the UK. 
• There are targets to double numbers of women and disabled people at senior levels by 2004/2005. Consequently, the civil service has introduced a number of measures including Elevator Partnership (a mentoring system for junior women managers) and Pathways (a management development programme for ethnic minority civil servants with the potenial to reach the senior civil service level). For more information on ethnicity go to the Equal opportunities section.

Source: Working Futures 2004, Prospect 2004, CGNTO 2002 and Performance and Innovation Unit 2000