Office support

The Commissioners are supported by a team of eight staff (not all working full time for the Commissioners).

Our staff support us across the full range of our responsibilities, this includes:

• policy development and delivery

• specific policy development issues concerning the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill
  

• audits of departments’ compliance with our Recruitment Principles

• analysis of the results of our Civil Service Code audit

• working with departments to help them in promoting the Civil Service Code
• the administration of appeals under the Recruitment Principles and the Civil Service Code
• briefing on a wide variety of issues relating to our roles for our liaison meetings with the Cabinet Secretary and other senior civil servants
• preparation of briefings for appearances before parliamentary committees
• preparing the Commissioners’ written evidence to parliamentary committees, Senior Salaries Review Body etc
• planning competitions
• providing secretarial support to the most senior appointment competitions
• the collection and analysis of statistics from competitions
• communication of our role and responsibilities in a variety of forums and media
  

We are grateful for their support and experience, without which it would be impossible to handle our responsibilities effectively or efficiently.

This year we said goodbye to Barry Forrester who has worked for the Commissioners as a Principal Policy Adviser for the last nine years. Barry has been an invaluable source of knowledge and wisdom to generations of Civil Service Commissioners. We send him every good wish for a long and happy retirement and our congratulations for the OBE he received in the Birthday Honours List.

We are pleased to welcome Sharon Foster-King as a new Principal Policy Adviser.