Streaming data

See the latest data on applications and appointments to the Civil Service Fast Stream on our blog.  Civil Service Fast Stream recruitment is very competitive, though in 2013 more positions became available

The Civil Service Fast Stream is a graduate scheme for future leaders, which has attracted around 20,000 applicants per year for the last few years. It’s a very competitive process: in 2013, nearly 18,000 people applied for one of the 864 available positions, so only about one in twenty applicants received a place on the scheme.

But this year’s recruitment was somewhat less competitive than in previous years, with the overall success rate increasing from 3.1% last year to 4.8% this year. This was because more positions were available, but also because fewer people were interested in the scheme: the number of applications fell by about 16%, from 21,300 last year. (The success rate also varies by the different ‘streams’ you can apply for, which include specialisms like the economist and statistician streams.) We recently looked at the composition and diversity of the Civil Service as it stood in March 2014. But what does the diversity of the Fast Stream intake – and therefore the future of the Senior Civil Service – look like? The success rate for male and female applicants is very similar

In 2013, the success rate for female candidates was slightly higher than that for male candidates – 5.2% compared to 4.4%. That is because slightly less than 50% of applications come from women, but they make up very close to 50% of appointments. However, the success rates have been very similar every year since records began in 1998. Ethnic minority applicants are still less likely to succeed than the average applicant, despite improvements

The success rate of BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) candidates – 3.6% – is the second highest since records began in 1998. However, BME applicants are still only 70% as likely to succeed in the recruitment process as white applicants, virtually unchanged from last year. The share of candidates from ethnic minorities (or BME) in the applicant pool has increased, and so has the share of appointments going to BME candidates, now at 13.2%. Oxbridge graduates’ grip on the Fast Stream is weakening

The success rate for candidates attending either Oxford or Cambridge universities remains higher than that for non-Oxbridge candidates, as it has every year since 1998. But the Oxbridge advantage has narrowed: Oxbridge graduates are now 2.6 times more likely to succeed than the average applicant, compared to 3.4 times last year and 4.8 times in 1998. Although Oxbridge candidates made up a slightly larger part of the candidate pool than last year, they filled a smaller share of appointments than any other year on record – 22%. Candidates whose parents are from ‘Routine and Manual’ occupational backgrounds have a lower success rate than those from higher backgrounds

Unlike the other measures, Fast Stream data on the socio-economic status of applicants is only available from 2011. Candidates were asked about occupational background of their parents, which could be ‘Higher Managerial, Administrative or Professional’, ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Routine and Manual’. In 2013, more than 70% of applicants came from a higher managerial background. These applicants are offered the majority of appointments, but they make up a higher percentage of appointments (78%) than applications. Applicants from Routine and Manual backgrounds make up 7% of applications, but only 3.5% of appointments. The success rate is 2.4%, which has risen slightly and steadily from 0.9% in 2011 and 1.6% in 2012, but it compares to 4.4% for candidates from Intermediate backgrounds and 5.3% for those from Higher Managerial ones in 2013. The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission has criticised these figures, highlighting that:

‘only 30 new recruits out of 864 entrants to the Fast Stream in 2013 – 3.5 per cent – were from working-class backgrounds. Applicants from working-class backgrounds are less than half as likely to be successful in their application as those from middle-class backgrounds. There are particular issues with the main scheme recruiting generalist civil servants, where only 3 out of 357 entrants – 0.8 per cent were from working-class background.’

Calling the findings ‘disturbing’, the Commission also expresses its disappointment that ‘tackling this issue was not highlighted as a bigger theme in the recent civil service Talent Action Plan’ (the Institute’s Jill Rutter looked at the gender side of that report in an earlier blog). But the Commission does say collecting the data is ‘a very welcome first step’, though only ‘if the issues it has revealed are resolved’. We’ll continue to monitor the data on this – only by understanding the composition of the Civil Service can we understand what needs to change, and how.