Recommendation 3

Most departments do not know how much it costs to recruit staff, or how they could be more efficient. 14 of the 16 main departments cannot provide full recruitment cost data. Only one department, HM Revenue & Customs, understands its recruitment costs well enough to be able to calculate its cost per hire, which is a standard metric for assessing the efficiency of an organisation’s recruitment processes. The Cabinet Office says it is developing a way of measuring and benchmarking recruitment costs consistently across departments. As part of this, it needs to specify how departments can estimate the cost of all staff time spent on recruitment activities, including that of line managers involved in hiring staff, given most departments struggle to report this cost. In addition, most departments 6 Civil service workforce: Recruitment, pay and performance management have not sought to learn from others how to make their recruitment processes more efficient. This is despite there being identified examples of good recruitment practice within the civil service, such as HM Revenue & Customs on recruitment costs and the Ministry of Justice on increasing the diversity of those it hires. Recommendation 3a: By the end of 2024, the Cabinet Office should define a common cost per hire measure that includes the cost of all staff time spent on recruitment, and require all departments to report to it regularly on their full cost per hire. b) The Cabinet Office should, within six months, share examples of efficient recruitment from within the civil service and external organisations, to encourage departments to identify improvements to their own recruitment processes.