Is public sector headcount out of control?

Eyebrows were raised in the House of Lords this week as the Justice and Home Affairs Committee heard evidence that the Ministry of Justice is having to recruit from overseas to staff Britain’s overcrowded jails.

Mark Fairhurst, the national chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, said:

We are recruiting from overseas and you are getting recruits from overseas, we have heard, turning up at the gate with suitcases and family in tow asking “Where is my accommodations?” […] We have got examples of overseas recruits sleeping in their cars because they have no accommodations.

Apparently there has been a bunch of overseas recruits who, because they have no accommodations, there is a wooded area opposite the prison where they are working at and they have set up camp there.

Last November, I reported that, for the first time ever, there were seven million migrants working in Britain’s labour force. But how much has the rest of the public sector come to rely on overseas workers? The Spectator’s data team has analysed the most recent figures available to find out.