Letter from the First Civil Service Commissioner
This has been a particularly exciting and significant year for the Civil Service Commissioners.
Civil Service legislation
Just as I was writing my Foreword to last year’s report, the Prime Minister announced to the House of Commons his intention to enshrine the core values of the Civil Service in legislation and to put the Commissioners on a statutory footing. In March 2008 the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill was published. The Civil Service Commissioners warmly welcome the publication of this Bill.
One of the draft Bill’s major proposals is the creation of a Civil Service Commission with responsibility to ensure appointment to the Civil Service is on merit on the basis of fair and open competition. The Commission will also hear appeals from civil servants under the Civil Service Code. You can read elsewhere in this Report our detailed comments on the draft Bill and some suggestions for improvements. We do believe that it is right that Civil Service legislation, so long promised, should now be brought forward. We will continue to contribute positively to the public consideration of the Bill as it progresses.
Strategy
Inevitably the promise of the draft Bill and its eventual publication has affected much of our work this year. In last year’s report we laid out an ambitious four year strategy to take us to 2010. Some of the specific work streams we identified have had to be adjusted in light of the publication of the Bill. But the substance of the strategy, and the vision it articulates, remains just as valid one year on. We record in this report the significant progress we have made against our strategy.
More competitions
This year has seen a significant rise in the number of competitions chaired by the Commissioners. We chaired competitions for a total of 123 posts this year. That is a 24% increase on the 99 posts we chaired in 2006-07. This increased activity is partly explained by machinery of government changes and partly by reorganisations that departments have undertaken in response to the findings of their Capability Reviews. But some of this increased workload is because the Commissioners now, at the invitation of the Head of the Home Civil Service, chair all the competitions for the Top 200 posts in the service. This is where the competition is either open to existing civil servants only or is also advertised to candidates outside the Civil Service. We believe it is an important additional safeguard to the impartiality of the Civil Service that the Commissioners now have oversight of the competitions for all the top jobs, however they are filled.