Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, pursuant to the answer of 30 July 2024 to Question 1261 on Senior Civil Servants, whether each of these roles were (a) externally advertised and (b) subject to open competition; and how many senior civil servants have been appointed without external advertisement and open competition since 30 May 2024.

The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 requires that selection to the Civil Service must be on merit, on the basis of fair and open competition.

Information on all Senior Civil Service appointments is not collated centrally. Departments can run campaigns outside of the central recruitment services through their own Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) or processes, or make appointments from existing reserve lists and it would be for individual departments to provide that level of detail with accuracy.

There may be instances where a role may meet the requirements for use of a Civil Service Commission exception. As part of this, the Civil Service Commission requires that departments provide a quarterly return on their use of Exceptions at SCS2 and above. This information can be found on the CSC website.