Departmental Compliance

The CSC’s new audit programme, 2024/25

This year the Commission has been implementing a new risk‑based audit methodology across 71 government departments. This has involved an increased focus on SCS recruitment, qualitative insight and the introduction of an in‑year moderation cycle. Recruitment campaigns from all grades (AO to SCS 4) are being examined, producing a comprehensive view of how the CSC’s principles - fairness, openness and merit - are being complied with by departments.

The compliance team has utilised a new priority order to determine the sequencing of audits in 2024/25. Departments were ordered based on the following factors:

1. Departments not audited between 2020 and 2023
2. Departments rated Poor or Fair (at risk) from the 2021/22 compliance year.
3. Departments identified through insight from breaches, the Commission’s quarterly survey, complaints under the Recruitment Principles and Commissioner feedback. 
4. If not already captured in 1-3 above, larger departments with a headcount exceeding 10,000.

Departments not covered under these 1-4 factors are receiving interim audits. Unlike full audits, interim audits only determine whether a full audit is triggered and accordingly are not subject to moderation meetings and do not result in recommendations and audit ratings. 

Departments that receive a full audit are rated using the following scale:

Department’s scores are calculated based on their breaches, Exception 1 usage, diversity, innovation and SCS recruitment. 

Breaches: Breaches encapsulate a wide range of issues, including upheld complaints and breaches recorded outside the audit process. Accordingly, this is the key measure for audits.

Exception 1 usage: An assessment of whether appointments made using Exception 1 have been made in line with its intended purpose: where either the urgency or short duration of the role makes a full competition impracticable or disproportionate.

Diversity: An assessment of any actions that have been implemented to encourage and improve the recruitment of under-represented groups in the Civil Service.

Innovation: An assessment of any actions that have been implemented to improve recruitment practices that go beyond regular processes.

SCS Recruitment: An assessment of any positive practice that has been implemented in relation to SCS recruitment approaches, including the appropriate use of fair, open, merit-based recruitment to appoint to SCS roles and evidence that EbD is embedded.  

Further details on this and on this year's approach to compliance can be found in our Annual Report and Accounts 2023-24

The compliance team can be reached at compliance@csc.gov.uk.