r/civilservice

I know he has met the cabinet secretary but wondering if anyone has any ideas?

Hi everyone,

I accepted a provisional offer back in May for the HMRC Compliance Caseworker 503R campaign, based in the Belfast.

Since then, my pre-employment checks, PECs, have been practically at a standstill. I recently contacted recruitment, and they told me my details have been forwarded for a manual, face-to-face ID check, but they can't give me a specific timeframe or date for the invite yet.

I’m starting to get a bit anxious because I've noticed that people from the newer, concurrent Compliance Caseworker 558R campaign are already getting updates and provisional offers rolling out.

Is anyone else from the 503R batch, specifically in Belfast or other regional hubs, still stuck in this exact same position waiting for their ID check or a start date? Is it normal for mass recruitment campaigns to have this much of a gap between the provisional offer and the actual ID verification step?

Appreciate any insight or shared experiences!

As the title says, surely if the behaviour is about working together as a team, I should be using more ‘we statements’ than ‘I statements’ ?

I received a provisional offer for the Compliance Caseworker role (588R). I accepted the offer (this was done on 26th June).

Identification was submitted on Monday, 30th June. The same day, I logged in and saw that 5/10 PECs had been completed.

However, today when I logged in, the status had changed to “Successful at Interview” with the following message: “Congratulations, you have been successful at interview. We will be in touch soon.”

Does anybody know what this could mean? Any information/advice would be much appreciated :)

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for a bit of advice from anyone with experience of HMRC Criminal Investigation, or anyone with knowledge of the role. I appreciate any current HMRC Criminal Investigators are probably unlikely to comment, but I’d be really grateful for any insight from those with experience or knowledge of the role.

I’ve previously seen a vacancy for an EO Criminal Investigator within HMRC’s Fraud Investigation Service, and it really interested me. It sounds like an exciting career with a great mix of financial investigation and operational work.

I come from a financial crime/fraud background, so the investigative side of the role—analysing evidence, applying legislation and building cases—is something I feel my experience would transfer well to. The part that made me hesitate, and ultimately stopped me applying this time, was the operational side.

From the advert, the role includes executing search warrants, searching premises, interviewing suspects under caution and making arrests.

I’m not afraid of dealing with confrontation when it’s part of the job, but I’m also not your stereotypical “enforcement” type. I’m certainly not built like a rugby player or ex-military! In my head, I imagine a lot of Criminal Investigators come from policing or other law enforcement backgrounds, so I’m probably overthinking whether I’d fit in.

My questions are:

• How competitive are these roles? Do they tend to attract a lot of applicants and people with previous law enforcement experience?
• How common are arrests in this role? Is it something you do regularly, or only occasionally? Are suspects generally compliant, or can situations become quite confrontational?
• During operational activity, are you usually working as part of a team, or are investigators expected to carry out arrests independently?
• One thing I’ve probably overthought is this! If a suspect is much bigger or more physically imposing than you, how is that managed in reality? Are arrests generally team operations, or are investigators expected to deal with situations independently?
• Is PPST as daunting as it sounds? I appreciate it’s a pass/fail course, but is it designed to teach people from scratch, or are there high expectations before you even start?
• How did people find the training? Is there plenty of support for new investigators, or are the expectations particularly high from day one?

I suppose my biggest concern is leaving a secure job for a role where I might struggle with the operational aspects, despite feeling very confident about the investigative side.

Finally, what’s the culture like within FIS? Is there a good mix of people from different professional backgrounds, or are most investigators ex-police or ex-forces? Do people coming from financial crime, compliance or other non-law enforcement backgrounds generally settle in well? I also wonder whether being younger and not from a traditional enforcement background makes you stand out, or whether that’s more common than I imagine.

I’d really appreciate any honest advice or experiences, as I think hearing from people who know the role would really help me understand what it’s actually like day to day.

Thanks in advance!

I’ve worked in the Civil Service for just over a decade, and it feels like I’ve been taking a real-terms pay cut almost every single year. I still live with my parents because, despite working full-time, getting onto the property ladder or even renting comfortably feels increasingly out of reach.
At the same time, the job seems to get more demanding every day. Targets increase, workloads grow, and there’s more micromanagement than ever. Is anyone else feeling completely worn down by Workforce Management (WFM) and AUI?
One thing that frustrates me is the public perception that civil servants are well paid with great conditions. The reality for many AOs is very different. I know colleagues who rely on help from family or friends just to get by, and some have had to use food banks or food pantries to make ends meet.
Whenever pay is discussed, the response is often, “Just get another job.” But what about those of us who genuinely want to work in public service? Whether it’s HMRC, DWP, or another department, we believe in serving the public. Wanting to continue doing that shouldn’t mean accepting falling living standards or poor treatment.
Does anyone else feel the same, or has your experience been different?

Hi everyone,
I’m already working in the Civil Service and have told my manager that I have ADHD.
I’m applying for internal roles and was wondering if anyone has requested reasonable adjustments for interviews, particularly receiving the interview questions in advance. Was your request approved, and did declaring ADHD have any impact on your application?
Also, could declaring ADHD or requesting reasonable adjustments have any impact on my current job or how I’m viewed at work?
I’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences.

Hi all, I am a former BBC Senior Broadcast Journalist applying for the Comms role at the civil service at HEO level. I have been applying since last year and have not managed to get an interview. I don't know where I am going wrong. Would someone kind enough be able to help me? I've been refining my STAR examples but don't know what I'm doing wrong?

I have been in contact with another person who has been offered the same job as me in the same location. They however have also applied to be a manager one level up from my post.

I have said to him that if he gets the manager job, that I will be challenging him to a duel every time we meet. We both would therefore need to carry a sword on us at all times.

So what is the Civil Service Policy on Swords?

I’m looking for some perspective on a resource allocation issue that has pushed our office to breaking point.

Over the last 12 months, our team headcount has naturally deflated from 12 down to 7 due to retirements, maternity leave, and transfers. Management has no plans to backfill these roles. Out of the remaining 7 staff, 2 have reasonable adjustments (RAs) that allow them to work entirely from home.

Because we are a public-facing operational delivery site, the WFH staff are restricted to telephone appointments and admin. They cannot cover face-to-face delivery. As a result, the most complex, stressful, and physically demanding workloads are being disproportionately dumped onto the remaining 5 office-based staff.

To cope with the deficit, management’s brilliant solution has been to cut our allocated time per task/appointment. We are being actively pressured to work faster and squeeze a 12-person workload out of a 5-person office presence, all while the 2 WFH staff are entirely shielded from this pressure due to the nature of their adjustments.

The atmosphere in the office is toxic with resentment. We are all on the same grade and hourly pay, yet the office-based staff are grafting to the point of burnout, while management hides behind RAs to avoid addressing a blatant staffing crisis.

At what point do reasonable adjustments become actively discriminatory or detrimental to the health and safety of the rest of the team? Has anyone successfully challenged management or involved the union when RAs are used to justify an unsustainable workload for everyone else?

I passed the interview and got a provisional offer over four months ago, but the vetting process feels like it has dropped into a black hole. Is this normal or should I be actively chasing the recruitment team? I am genuinely running out of savings while waiting to actually start the job

Hi hive mind! ☺️

I have an interview in a few weeks for a SEO policy role at HMRC. The interview invite says that *during* the interview I will be asked to:

• Complete a drafting task to test my ability to draft concisely and succinctly. This is to test my ability to communicate & influence
• Complete a fermi problem to test my ability to make effective decisions
• Answer a behaviour style question on my ability to see the bigger picture.

I was wondering if anyone has had any experience of an interview that is conducted this way? I am going to email tomorrow to double check that this will be a first sight task during the interview, but if so, could anyone offer any advice on what this may look like?

My initial understanding is that they're not looking for perfection but it will be used as a way to test my approach towards these tasks and understand my thinking. Any helpful pointers would be great, thanks all ☺️

Uk - g6 roles.

Keep scoring 4/5/6 but again keep getting rejected. Scored in kne 5 and 6 mainly and still got rejected.

Presentation seems to be doing well but never getting to actual offer.

Any advice?

What am I doing wrong.

Hello! I can’t seem to find a straightforward answer anywhere on this, hoping to apply for a civil service role that is non reserved as an American citizen on ILR- have lived in the UK 7 years- am I eligible?

I took a city civil service exam last December. Yesterday (6/30/26) I received an official congratulations on passing. The letter is a bit confusing but I think it says, if a job I qualify for opens up I might be contacted for an interview.
Is there anyway I can find out what jobs are available and apply?

I’m currently going through pre-employment checks for an AO role and need some advice.

One of the questions asks whether I’ll have another job alongside this role.

I’m currently on a zero-hours contract and only work occasionally on weekends or every other Saturday. Ideally I’d like to keep it for extra income and flexibility. It’s a very minimal receptionist job.

I’m not sure what to select:

Should I select “Yes” because technically I still have another job?

Or does occasional zero-hours work not really count?

I’m mainly worried that declaring a second job could affect the formal offer, even though the work is minimal and wouldn’t conflict with normal working hours.

Has anyone been in a similar situation with Civil Service pre-employment checks? Was secondary employment allowed?