2.21 The Department aims to reduce civilian headcount by around 7,600 through natural wastage (excluding recruitment) by 2015 (Figure 3), 26 per cent of its overall target. There has been a recruitment freeze across the entire civil service (with the exception of posts deemed business critical, support to operations and a limited number of fast stream entrants). The Department expects to increase recruitment to pre-2010 levels once the freeze ends in 2014-15. Intake of civilian personnel (excluding trading funds) has reduced significantly from 4,200 in 2009-10 to 1,610 in 2010-11. The number of civilians leaving the Department from 2009-10 has remained relatively steady and in 2010-11, 4,470 civilian staff (excluding Trading Funds) left the Department. As Figure 5 shows, loss of staff through privatisation was the most significant factor at the start of 2011-12, while there have been minor changes in the numbers of resignations. The Department has experienced a steady outflow of people since April 2010, although it has less control of which people are lost through natural wastage than through a redundancy programme.11
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11 Natural wastage includes several factors such as personnel choosing to leave the organisation and retirement.