Recent, limited, surveys have tried to paint a dispiriting picture of a civil service low on morale, crippled by stress and uncertainty over the future, and fearful of voicing its opinions. The contrast with our latest annual People Survey, published today, is instructive. The survey is the largest of its kind in the country, with responses from more than 270,000 civil servants, nearly two-thirds of the entire workforce.
The headline figures show a civil service not apprehensive about change but embracing it and getting on with the job. There are high scores for the numbers who are interested in their work (89%), believe they have the skills and tools they need to do their jobs (89%), feel trusted to do so effectively (89%), and are confident in the respect of their colleagues (84%).
Separate figures show that sickness absence in the civil service, as measured by the number of average working days lost per person, is at its lowest recorded level, standing at 6.3 days – down from 7.9 days in 2009.
This is not to ignore the very real concerns that civil servants have over the impact of change. But given that we are in the middle of the most far-reaching reform of the civil service in more than a generation – to equip it for the challenges of being more efficient, more digital, more capable, more open, more collaborative, more commercially astute – it is telling that our annual survey continues to portray a service that is a great place to work and with morale that has held up well.
Against this background, yesterday saw the presentation of the annual civil service awards. This was our opportunity to celebrate not just the winners, but the achievements of ordinary civil servants everywhere. These are the people who keep the country running in a bewildering variety of different roles and locations, demonstrating a huge range of specialist skills, and remarkable levels of commitment and innovation – whether they are working with troubled families in Britain’s cities, planning the digital transformation of public services, developing policies to prevent sexual violence internationally, or conducting research with the British Antarctic Survey.
We received almost 700 nominations from across the UK in the 16 awards categories. This year there was a new award for volunteering, recognising the contribution of increasing numbers of civil servants who are committing their own time to improving the life of their communities.
Winners included the troubled families team at the Department for Communities and Local Government. They have developed and implemented a national programme that has turned around the lives of more than 50,000 of the most troubles families in England since 2012.
The analysis and use of evidence award was won by the humanitarian innovation and evidence programme at the Department for International Development. The humanitarian organisations that respond to natural and manmade disasters often have to do so with outdated tools and a lack of good evidence about which interventions are most effective. The DFID programme is working to change this, bringing in world-class research commissioning bodies, testing new interventions and improving accessibility to and use of evidence.
These are just a couple of examples of a civil service that is changing the way it works, to be more digital, more open to new ideas, to work collaboratively across boundaries and to manage projects more efficiently.
Much remains to be done, but the call for culture change in the civil service has come from civil servants themselves. It is a testament to their public service ethic that far from becoming disillusioned in economically straitened times, civil servants are if anything more engaged with their work than ever, and with more space to innovate are committed to changing for the better the services we all rely on.
Sir Jeremy Heywood is head of the civil service and Cabinet secretary
Read more:
- Civil service survey: civil servants unhappy over pay and leadership
- Civil service morale: ‘You dread going into work in the morning’
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