Stuart Burrows, Deputy Head of Executive Recruitment, Civil Service Talent

1. Civil Service Talent
1

2. Size of the Civil Service
22
Full time employees
(FTE) since 1902

3. Civil Service by Department
33

4. 4
39
Permanent
Secretaries
155
Directors General
788
Directors
3187
Deputy Directors
4
Senior Civil Service (SCS)
1% of overall headcount

5. 5
“Talent” in the Civil Service means people who have:
● The potential to progress further or faster than their peers;
● The aspiration to perform one of the organisation’s critical senior roles.
Identification of Talent

6. Vision
Attract, retain and develop talented people from a diverse range of backgrounds
throughout their careers, to create a Brilliant Civil Service for the future.
Goals
1. Use modern recruitment practices and evidence-based decisions to identify,
attract and select the most skilled and talented people;
2. Implement talent management in a way that champions diversity and inclusion
and delivers clear, varied and accessible career pathways for everyone;
3. Build a robust and diverse pipeline for the Senior Civil Service.
66
Talent Strategy

7. 7
Individual
Development
Programme
To equip high
potential DGs for
the step-up to
Permanent Secretary
High Potential
Development
Scheme
To accelerate the
development of
Directors with the
greatest potential to
progress to DG
and beyond
Senior Leaders
Scheme
To accelerate the
development of the
pipeline for future
leaders for key
Director & DG roles
Future Leaders
Scheme
To improve corporate
visibility of the G6/7
talent pool and
accelerate their
development to SCS
Core components
Leadership theory modules, executive coaching, action learning sets, corporate
challenges on priority areas, high profile speakers, networking opportunities etc.
7
Accelerated Development

8. Using modern recruitment practices and evidence-based decisions to identify,
attract and select the most skilled and talented people to work across the Civil
Service.
● Providing expertise, advice and guidance to support talent acquisition via direct
advertising and when needed executive search, either through our in-house
search capability or external search partners.
● Supporting recruitment activity for the top four Senior Civil Service (SCS) pay
bands (Deputy Director through to Permanent Secretary).
● Leading on attraction strategy for the Senior Civil Service, with a strong focus on
using attraction and selection methods which encourage diversity.
88
Executive Recruitment team

9. 99
Diversity
Creating a Civil Service that is as diverse as the people we serve

10. 1010
Diversity
Creating a Civil Service that is as diverse as the people we serve

11. 1111
Diversity
Creating a Civil Service that is as diverse as the people we serve

12. 12
Applied Sifting Tool Holistic Scoring
To reduce
unconscious bias in
sifting. ‘Chunking’
and separating a
candidate’s
answers to
anonymise and
allow questions to
be answered
independently.
Panel interviews
and scores
candidates
individually to
reduce risk of
‘group think’.
Sequential
Interviewing
Ensure that all
stages of the
candidate
assessment are
recorded and
considered as part of
the final evaluation.
Behavioural Insights Pilots

13. ● Recruitment Centre of Expertise under development
● Urgent staff redeployment
● Attraction strategy
● Civil Service careers landing page
1313
Centralised coordination

14. 1414
Civil Service Careers
Website Platform

15. 15
● ‘Be Part of It’ recruitment campaign - driven by a high demand for Policy & Project Delivery
professionals
15

16. 16
Questions?