The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has asked the Office of National Statistics to provide details on its figures, following news reports 25% of its civil servants work in HR.

According to the Daily Telegraph, 970 of the Ministry's 3,680 officials are employed in ‘human resources'.

But a spokeswoman from the MoJ told HR magazine the figures do not add up with its own records. She said: "The figures given in the reply to this press query were provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and based on statistics supplied by a number of Government departments and agencies including the Ministry of Justice in the context of the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey.

"We have asked ONS to provide more details about the basis and comparability of these figures as we are unable to reconcile them with our own management information."

The report from Mandrake also reveals the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has an HR staff numbering 5,650, but a DWP spokesman told HR magazine: "DWP employs more than 100,000 people. The size of our HR is comparable to other organisations of this size."