Departmental Dismissal

Chris Huhne
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how many members of staff in his Department and its agencies were dismissed (a) for under-performance and (b) in total in each of the last 10 years.

Jonathan Shaw
The number of staff dismissed (a) for under-performance and (b) in total in each of the last 10 years is not available in the format requested.

The Department and its agencies do not have a category of under-performance as a measure of employee performance. However, there is a category of unsatisfactory performance.

The information is held on the Department’s personnel computer system which was introduced from November 2006. Information is not available from this system prior to April 2007.

The number of staff dismissed for unsatisfactory performance and the number dismissed in total, for each year since April 2007 is outlined in the following table:

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|                    |Dismissals for unsatisfactory performance|Dismissals for reasons other than unsatisfactory performance|Total dismissals|
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|DWP and its agencies|17                                       |1,167                                                       |1,184           |
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|DWP and its agencies|Dismissals for unsatisfactory performance|Dismissals for reasons other than unsatisfactory performance|Total dismissals|
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|DWP total           |18                                       |1,190                                                       |1,208           |
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The total number of staff dismissed in each year was in the region of 1 per cent. of the total staff employed in the Department. Of the total number of staff dismissed for reasons other than unsatisfactory performance around two-thirds were dismissed for unsatisfactory attendance.