Report of the Local Government Efficiency Review Group

Corporate Services, HR, IT, and Finance) taken together with Motor Tax
account for close to 16% of all staff.
Figure 6.9 – Local Authority Staff by Service Area, end-2009
Fire & Emergency
Planning
6.1%
Motor Traffic
Tax IT
1.6%
HR 2% 1.8%
2.1%
Corporate Services
4.6%
Planning
5.4%
Libraries
5.1%
Finance
5.3%
Community &
Enterprise
9.7%
Water & Wastewater
10%
Senior
Management
0.8%
Source: Survey of County and City Councils, 2010(Note: rounding may affect totals)
6.8 Corporate Functions
Roads
22.1%
Housing
12.4%
Waste / Environment
10.9%
6.8.1 Staffing levels across service areas vary greatly across local authorities.
For several functional areas, this is to be expected. For example, the roads
function accounts for as many as three times the level of staff in rural local
authorities compared to urban authorities, whereas urban authorities have a
greater concentration of staff in the housing area. However, staffing levels
in the corporate areas should be largely comparable across local
authorities, where demand for the function is less sensitive to local city and
county characteristics and more dependent on individual organisational
factors. Practice varies however, as Figure 6.10 shows to a greater extent
than expected.
71