There used to be a rather prissy middle-aged shop assistant in BBC TV’s Chewin’ the Fat who would listen patiently to two other characters talking pretentious nonsense until a gap in their conversation, when she would sniff the air disdainfully and utter the immortal words ‘I smell shite.’
I’ve just caught up with the Civil Service Competency Framework 2012-2017 and I smell – well, pretentious nonsense.
The idea is simple and makes sense: a guide for civil servants which tells them what they should be good at and how they should behave.
Have I expressed that clearly? I hope so, and I hope the great Sir Ernest Gowers, author of The Complete Plain Words, would agree.
I suspect the authors of the new ‘competency framework’ – ‘Civil Service Human Resources’ – have not read Gowers.
He wrote his book to ‘help officials in their use of written English as a tool of their trade’ and quoted Victorian poet Matthew Arnold – ‘Have something to say and say it as clearly as you can.’
Let’s test the ‘framework’ against what Gowers called ‘this golden rule.’
First, different things are expected of different grades of civil servant. Fair enough. I would expect more of Sir Bob Kerslake, head of the civil service (salary £200,000 ) than an administrative assistant (otherwise known as a ‘Level 1 AA,’ starting salary £12,000).
Let’s take the lowest salary level. Up to fifty-one separate behaviours are expected of an administrative assistant including:
- Learn new procedures, seek to exploit new technologies and help colleagues to do the same
- Make and record effective decisions following the appropriate decision making criteria, framework or guidance [I think it means decision-making]
- React constructively to developmental feedback and make changes as a result
- Understand the relevant terms and conditions, including deliverables of relevant contracts
- Challenge others appropriately where they see wastage
- Take ownership of issues, focus on providing the right solution and keep customers and delivery partners up to date with progress
- Remain focused on delivery
- Participate in quality assurance of products or services.
Even if something sensible lurks behind each of these requirements, this is no more than bureaucratic jargon – management-speak..
In case people don’t get the point (quite likely given some of the language), each behaviour is accompanied by an example of opposite, ineffective behaviour. So not only should civil servants ‘remain focused on delivery,’ they should not ‘be easily discouraged or distracted.’
And up to fifty-one behaviours? On top of whatever technical requirements the job has? What a wonderful industry of training and appraisal beckons for ‘human resources’ to develop, implement, monitor and review.
If this weren’t enough, the fifty-one behaviours are grouped into ten competencies, including ‘collaborating and partnering,’ ‘building capability for all,’ and ‘delivering at pace.’ The competences are then grouped into three ‘Clusters’ – setting direction, engaging people, and delivering results.
The framework places a similar but obviously more onerous range of requirements on each of the five salary grades above ‘Level 1.’
Among the choice language to explain all this are the following gems:
- Competencies are intended to be discrete and cumulative
- For all staff, [seeing the big picture] is about focusing your contribution on the activities which will meet Civil Service goals and deliver the greatest value
- [Senior staff] will aim to maximise return while minimising risk and balancing social, political, financial, economic and environmental considerations to provide sustainable outcomes
- [Leading and communicating is] about supporting principles of fairness of opportunity for all and a dedication to a diverse range of citizens
- For all staff [building capability is] being open to learning, about keeping one’s own knowledge and skill set current and evolving
- People who [deliver value for money] well base their decisions on evidenced information.
Inevitably, the framework is linked to the civil service’s ‘performance management system.’ I warned against performance management when I wrote about the 2012 Civil service reform plan. The competency framework does not lessen my concerns.
I hope what I write speaks for itself. In case it doesn’t I’ll spell it out: the competency framework is badly expressed and represents a wrong approach to managing the civil service.
In an epilogue to The Complete Plain Words, Sir Ernest Gowers quoted the 16th century English scholar Roger Ascham
He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do; and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.
It’s a lesson ‘Civil Service Human Resources’ and their masters seem not to have learned.
My thanks to the excellent Dragon Fairy on Twitter who alerted me to this document.
HelpGov's helpful blog 
12 October 2013 at 14:45
I absolutely despise this framework. It’s so specific about how you should approach an application, right down to how much percent of your answer should be dedicated to the situation, the task etc. This framework has destroyed the human element of actually getting to know someone – I believe a person’s character – as well as their experience – will often tell someone that they are more than capable of doing the job.
What’s more astonishing is that a 15 minute interview will never be about you. The interviewers will again ask you four or five competency questions which you have to answer so specifically – they’ll never want to find out who you actually are. How are you supposed to build successful relationships in the work place if people aren’t interested to know anything about you? It’s amazing, old fashioned, soul destroying nonsense.
28 January 2014 at 18:24
This should make it simple to secure any role one wants by using invented examples that mirror the prescribed behaviours in the percentages specified. As long as one memorises a cover story well and has a supply of additional ‘examples’ this should be child’s play for psycopaths and sociopaths!
9 December 2014 at 20:06
The civil service recruitment and promotion process is all wrong. People get jobs because others have written competencies for them and they’ve memorised it. People who are hard workers and actually have the necessary skills are being denied positions because they didn’t get a mate or manager at a high grade to write competencies for them. It’s so sad.
16 April 2015 at 15:29
I’m writing my example for ‘Managing a Quality Service’ as we speak. The job is for a Review Officer which i would normally be able to do sitting on the latrines, but I expect a corporate clone 20 years my junior to get the post. Ho hum.
20 April 2015 at 12:18
Jim G, I really do sympathise with you. I’m attempting to write an example of ‘Making Effective Decisions’ at the moment. My current job role is ‘Decision Maker’ and is right there in the job description part of the form. I’m actually really struggling to put words to this one. Maybe should just write ‘As a Decision maker what exactly do you think I do all day?’ lol!
Although I’ve been working on a temporary promotion basis more often than not for the last few years, and it’s really clear that I’m more than capable, I’ve missed out on full promotion due to the awful scoring system of the competency based application. Use the right number of required words and your through to the next stage. Talk yourself up in interview, regardless of whether any of it is true, and bingo!
29 October 2015 at 22:10
I’m struggling with exactly same competency. I have been doing the job well for the last year yet struggle to get through the sift or interview. civil service promotion is such a joke.
8 October 2015 at 20:54
And the competency framework encourages all the wrong behaviours. Some of it is good and some of it is rubbish. Aspiring Fast Streamers for example are examined against those competencies. Not necessarily the nicest or most competent people get the jobs. I think some civil servants are just plain devious or inhumane, because that is what the system produces.
4 November 2015 at 15:24
The system is a joke I recently went for a interview at DWP to answer phones after working in a previous call centre but I didn’t get the job cos my answers didn’t meet competencies even though I have had previous call centre experience.
5 January 2016 at 11:06
i have one of these interviews tomorrow and i am really struggling, not having the experience does not help 😦
5 January 2016 at 12:40
Read through your examples you gave on the interview and try and jazz them up a bit to make them more complex. Good luck
5 January 2016 at 15:53
Sorry application not interview
21 November 2017 at 16:12
1. This framework should not be allowed to put all servants of the state into boxes of behaviour that will deter them from being effective and human.
2. I feel extremely saddened by the role HR has been allowed to lead on when it comes to recruitment. Dogmatic HR approaches – including making everyone apply for jobs online, and no longer on paper unless you have a disability, is killing ‘integrity, honesty and hope’ for the future UK governance.
Why did we allowed HR to hoodwink managers into allowing so much agency and allowing so much poor value for money?
3. It is truly depressing for older women who are being made to work till 68 yrs. instead of the promised 60 yrs. Why should they have to wait another 8 plus years to retire? In that time many will probably die because of not being able to find employment – despite their skills and abilities which HR nearly always find a reason to ignore. There are enough living UK teachers, nurses and doctors. However, the state ensured that many had retired before they were ready to; and then put agencies in charge of spinning the line about “UK labour shortages”. (Charging the public five times the costs of normal public servants). If those who fit the competency framework have allowed this to happen, no wonder so much ineffectiveness of government has been seen to happen recently.
4. Young IT led civil servants rarely have a clue about real competencies. Thanks to these young civil servants or agents who helped them devise new policies (without the input of experience and without a care about the impact on others) – we can all expect to sleep worse at night. There is a serious lack of forethought because young civil servants doesn’t have many experienced older colleagues helping them to relate to human need.
5. I feel that this framework reads more like a study devised by those with mild autism. The civil service has a long history of being remote and inhuman in its approach; and its recruitment schemes have always reinforced getting that ‘civil service type’ recruited rather than those people who can really advise from a human perspective and who can dream up creative and acceptable solutions.
26 July 2018 at 15:50
I just did a competency situational judgement test. A real battle through ranking 4 unappealing false dichotomies. I used my common sense to decide what to escalate to my line manager and not to do anything twitty like immediately threaten someone with written warnings for minor infractions… I got 12%. Either I’ve missed the point entirely or the object is to hire nasty people.