r/CivilServiceUK

Apart from your 1 x Voluntary Redundancy scheme, what else has happened within the DHSC e.g. consultations etc. in prep for (April 2027) the "New DHSC"?

Im genuinely curious about mentoring and the quality of mentoring and training in the civil service in various departments and roles

For my own insight I guess.

Did anyone have to learn their job literally by themselves or feel alone with it.

Id like to think we can be open and honest on here on the general consensus and people's experiences

Hi all,
I’m currently at the PEC stage for a role.
The Head of department** ** emailed me directly to schedule a brief call to "discuss some queries he has," referring to the role as a "potential opportunity."
I’m feeling anxious because:
The portal hasn't updated to completed or passed PEC
He used terms like "queries" and "potential opportunity" rather than the role, Congratulations or welcome .

Has anyone had a senior lead reach out before the portal updated? Is this usually just an informal alignment call or something more formal that could affect my offer
Thanks

Hi everyone, I’m hoping to hear from anyone who has been through this as I’m feeling quite anxious about it.

I’m going on maternity leave next month and plan to take a year of maternity leave, then use my accrued annual leave immediately afterwards. I was recently told by my manager that, because I’ll be away for around a year, returning to this exact role isn’t guaranteed.

This has really worried me, as I’d always assumed I’d be returning to my current role after maternity leave.

For those who have been on maternity leave in the Civil Service:

Were you able to return to the exact same role you left and if not, what happened?

Was your department able to find you a suitable alternative role at the same grade?

Did anyone experience their role changing/reorganising while they were away?

How much notice were you given about where you would be returning to?

I’d really appreciate hearing about people’s actual experiences, especially if you’ve taken a year or more away.

I know every department is different, but I’m feeling quite anxious about the uncertainty and would really like to know what other people experienced. Thank you!!

Has anyone else received an update on their application ? Curious to see what others got for their SJT as I unfortunately didn’t get in.

Mine was 348.

I have a 6 months loan on double promotion and also a permanent role in my current grade. The promotion gets me back to my specialism pre civil service but the lateral move is FLM same as my current role.

I cannot stress how much hate I have for my current job. I appreciate myblife could be worse if I have a different manager but I am in a toxic work enviroment and been trying to leave.

I have 2 merit lists in the double promotion as well but as we know they may run out without an offer.

I dont want the permanent role to go without a start date for the loan but the loan requires a CTC dunno how long it will take.

What should I do?

Advice please.

Hey all, got frustrated with the official site while applying for CS jobs, so I built a tool to make searching easier. It pulls live vacancies and lets you:

• Filter by minimum open posts (better odds than fighting for one seat)
• Search multiple titles/locations at once (e.g., "developer, engineer" or "London, Birmingham")
• Filter by grade, salary, closing date, and department
• View key details upfront without clicking into every listing

Currently cannot sort by newest because CSJ does not publish the publish dates. I know a few workarounds, but they will not be accurate, so I left it out for now. If there is enough interest I will further develop this, otherwise I will keep it private.

Still early days. Would love to know if this is useful or what is missing.

https://demositecsj.vercel.app

Edit: Apologise for the cringe title.

Starmer, Rishi, Boris etc all wanted a smaller civil service. Now Burnham has said the Civil service ‘must become smaller and more strategic.’ I really don’t understand they keep attacking the civil service but never mention how big the House of Lords is or the number of MPs. If most decisions are going to be taken locally, do we really need 650 MPs. I wrote to my MP twice and gave up as his reply was a templated response and didn’t answer my question. Also how will the government make the civil service, they are not going make people redundant compulsory as it will cost too much. If you are not close to retirement you are not going to take voluntary redundancy as the job market is bad

Do all Compliance caseworkers at HMRC do site visits? I 've been offered the role recently. I do love working with numbers, calculations, investigations, and to challenge discrepancies however I am dreading the site visits. i know that I won't enjoy it. Are all Compliance Caseworkers required to do site visits? I have also been offered another CS role at the same grade and I'm seriously considering taking that one instead if site visits are an unavoidable part of the Compliance Caseworker role. I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone with experience in the job.

So I live commutable distance to London but the cost of going in three days a week is well over a hundred pounds a week. I know people will say before covid people used to go in five days a week but most people who I know are allowed to work 3 days at home. So my question is can I have a career in Hertfordshire or Bedfordshire and stay in the cs?

So I started a job recently at DWP in CMS centred around benefits and I’m really enjoying the team and being in the CS. However, I found out before starting that I was being placed on the reserve list for the Compliance Caseworker 588r role at a position that I feel it’s likely I will get called up at some point within the year.

My thing is that this potential role pays about 3k more a year which is a noticeable amount but I’m really not sure how the workload/ team/ stress is going to compare and if it’s worth it. Does anyone have any experience or knowledge around this?

I was looking for some advice on how to give good answers when I don't particularly have much work experience or previous employment in my career so far.

Realisitically I don't feel like I'd score high marks if I don't have solid evidence to back up my answers.

I am a primary school teacher who is looking to transition into a role in the civil service. The application process is killing me! For the past (a lot of) years, I have written a lot of (short) lesson plans and a few school policies, but writing behaviour statements has me completely stumped! Is there a way to teach myself to apply for the roles I'm interested in?

Oh, also, what should my CV look like?

Hi all, posting on behalf of my daughter in her late 20s who’s looking at HEO (or SEO) level roles in the Civil Service. she is not on reddit.

she is open to what that is. She is willing to take a pay cut - she works in marketing and comms and is also a trained higher level teaching assistant.

Very specifically for a non technical role where the main part of the job is producing tangible deliverables, rather than a role where the majority of the week is stakeholder meetings.

Just to be clear here that she is absolutely not expecting a job with zero meetings or any stakeholder interaction. That is obviously hugely part of most Civil Service roles. she is specifically looking for roles where meetings are a smaller part of the job and there’s a decent amount of uninterrupted time to actually get the work done. she is willing to do a short course before applying for roles. Understood this is a bit of a ‘unicorn’ scenario but surely not impossible.

For anyone at HEO (or SEO level), are there particular job families or types of roles you would recommend looking at? she has a degree in a non technical role. Are there roles please you’ve personally found to be noticeably more deliverables focused?
I would be very interested in hearing from people who have experience of the actual day to day reality of their role (rather than what the job advert says).

thank you very much.