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Perhaps they just got out of the wrong side of the bed on the day the questionnaire arrived. But one third of Wales Office staff want to leave the department within the next year.

The Wales Office, which represents Wales in the UK Government, employs fewer than 60 staff, most of them in Whitehall.

According to its latest staff eight per cent want to leave their jobs "as soon as possible", with another 24 per cent wanting to go within the next 12 months.

The Wales Office says the figures are comparable to other departments, where civil servants often seek to leave as a way of securing promotion within their profession.

The survey suggests most of the Wales Office's civil servants do enjoy their work, although a substantial proportion (42 per cent) say they don't understand where the Wales Office fits in to the Ministry of Justice, its parent department.

There is some unhappiness on (largely frozen) pay and perks but according to the Wales Office Minister they do earn their cash.

Here's one of his recent tweets: "2½ hrs on train and 5 in car today. Home now; officials still travelling. Never say civil servants don't work hard. They're brilliant."

Should they subscribe to his twitter feed, the Wales Office civil servants can also enjoy updates on engineering work on the west coast main line, and (almost) his every move: ("Sitting in a lengthy car wash queue. Every car caked in salt.")

There is news of Liverpool FC ("1-1 against Wigan; not good") and the weather ("a wonderful, sunny day in Whitehall. Intimations of spring...").

Computer geeks are not ignored - ("Interestingly, download speed's down to 28 Mbps tonight but upload is a stonking 23") and there is no shortage of interesting facts ("Just realised today is a palindromic date: 11 02 2011").

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