Civil service recruitment

How is civil service recruitment regulated?

The Civil Service Commission regulates recruitment to the civil service. This body was established in the 19th century, and put into statute by the 2010 Act. It is independent of government and the civil service and, also under the 2010 Act, has a legal duty to ensure that the ‘merit requirement’ is upheld.

The commission is required to publish a set of recruitment principles, with which the civil service must comply.

The recruitment principles set out the legal requirements and the importance of fair and open competition, with individual government departments and agencies responsible for ensuring that their processes meet the principles.

The current principles do, however, set out “essential steps” that “must be followed in all cases”. ⁷ https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/recruitment/recruitment-principles/  It is a requirement, for example, that selection processes must be “objective, impartial and applied consistently”, and will often but not always include an interview. All candidates must be given information about the role (including the Civil Service Code), and given similar opportunities to inform themselves about it. 

Some requirements are more prescriptive. There must be a selection panel of two or more people; and at the end of the process, appointable candidates must be listed in order of merit.

The commission has a more active role in recruitment for the most senior positions. For the external recruitment of directors general and permanent secretaries, the selection panel must be chaired by one of the Civil Service commissioners, regardless of whether the process is open to external or just internal candidates. The same is “normally” true for external competitions for director-level officials.

Can ministers be involved in civil service recruitment processes?

Yes. Where “the relevant minister has an interest in an appointment”, the chair of the selection panel must ensure that the minister is consulted and agrees the role and job specification, as well as how the role is advertised. Any minister with such an interest “should also agree the composition of the selection panel, in particular to ensure that there is sufficient external challenge from outside the civil service”.Ministers’ influence extends further – while they cannot sit on a selection panel or add or remove candidates from the competition, their views on the “expertise, experience and skills of the candidates” must be communicated to the panel, and they can meet shortlisted candidates, as long there is a representative of the Civil Service Commission present.

While the selection panel must assess candidates’ merits “using the best possible evidence” and recommend the best candidate for appointment, the minister may ask them to reconsider. This is unusual, but does happen occasionally, for example when David Cameron blocked the appointment of David Kennedy as permanent secretary at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. The approval of the commission’s board is required before this results in a different decision.

For the recruitment of permanent secretaries – the most senior grade of civil servant – the prime minister also has a role (in addition to the relevant departmental minister) and can feed in their views. The final decision is taken by the prime minister, based on a list of appointable candidates prepared by the panel. The final decision must still be based on merit.

Can there be exceptions to the recruitment principles?

Yes. The 2010 Act provides for the commission to allow exceptions to the recruitment principles. This must be justified by either “the needs of the civil service”, or be “necessary to enable the civil service to participate in a government employment initiative”. The commission says that exceptions “are usually short-term; for example secondments which promote the exchange of ideas and experience”.

In some cases, the approval of the commission is required before a department or agency departs from the recruitment principles. Prior approval is always required for an excepted appointment at SCS pay band 2 (director-level or above), or for any individual whose pro-rata salary is at or above the SCS pay band 2 minimum. It is also required for any extension or variation of a fixed-term appointment at those levels. The commission publishes the details of such exceptions each year. ⁸ https://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/publications/pb2-recruitmentexceptions/

There are several types of exception that departments are free to decide for themselves whether to use. These include temporary appointments and secondments (for a maximum of two years in both cases), appointments of people with highly specialist skills, or of former civil servants within five years of them leaving the civil service. Departments must be able to justify their use of these exceptions, and report on them in an annual compliance statement.

The commission also retains a broad power to make an exception for any other appointments not defined in the recruitment principles, where it believes this is justified by the needs of the civil service.

What about the appointment of politically active or aligned individuals?

Previous political activity does not bar individuals from joining the civil service. The commission’s recruitment principles state that, for all civil service recruitment, where candidates have been involved in political activity the selection panel must “satisfy itself that the candidate understands the requirement to operate objectively and impartially if appointed and must record how this has been done”. This would need to have happened for the recent appointment of Ian Corfield as a director in the Treasury, or Emily Middleton as a director general in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

The recruitment principles do not refer to any processes regarding the use of exceptions to appoint politically aligned candidates.

Special advisers, while formally ‘temporary civil servants’, are a different category. They are treated as political appointments given their political role in government, and so their recruitment and appointment are not regulated by the commission.