Understanding the Public Services Industy

Public Services Industry Review
Figure 2.8: Size of PSI activity in comparison to other UK industry sectors 14
GVA, 2006 (£ billion)
0 25
50
75 100
PSI Industries
Transport and storage
Hotels and restaurants
Electricity, gas and
water supply
Communication
GVA (top axis)
Employee jobs (bottom axis)
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Employee jobs, September 2007 (million)
Source: ONS Workforce jobs and Provisional National Accounts GVA
Note: The PSI employment measure includes self-employment and employee jobs, industry comparisons exclude selfemployment.
Where an individual holds more than one job, the employee jobs series counts each job.
Data Difficulties
2.19 At the most basic level having complete and historically consistent procurement data
from all government departments would improve the measurement and understanding
of the PSI. Procurement data are collected and collated both by HMT and the OGC.
However, these data are incomplete and some departments make no distinction
between procurement of goods and services. It is claimed that a concerted effort would
be needed to improve this, which may require changes to administrative systems with
major resource implications. Further, the continued blurring between what constitutes
a “good” and a “service” will only serve to magnify these data issues.
2.20 OGC plans to repeat its survey of government departments’ procurement in
September 2008 and it is important to ensure that departments respond in full. OGC
are also working with 16 departments to identify steps they can take to improve the
required collection and provision of detailed data in the longer term. This work should
be pursued with greater urgency. Some data on items such as planned spend on
services (used to develop Figure 4.2) are available from departments. Where such data
are produced they should be made publicly available.
14 PSI is not separated out from the other data included in the chart. The majority of PSI jobs will be in business services
(section K), other service industries (section O), education (section M) and health (section N).
19