Third of top civil servants have quit

More than a third of Britain's most senior civil servants have left their jobs since the Coalition government took power, new figures have shown.

The high turnover has been partly attributed to the large number of redundancies among the 4,000 biggest earners at Whitehall.

The Department for Communities and Local Government had the most senior civil staff leaving at 43 per cent, according to the figures released after questions in partliament by Labour MP Gareth Thomas.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport came next with 40 per cent of staff leaving since the government took over.