Home Office: Civil Servants

The legal requirement for appointment to the Civil Service (CS) is for selection to be made on merit based on fair and open competition. Under section 12 of the 2010 Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, the CS Commission has the power to except a selection from the requirement to appoint on merit based on a fair and open competition. This must either be justified by the needs of the CS or be necessary to enable the CS to participate in a government employment initiative.

Departments must be able to justify why, in any appointment, it has not been possible to select someone on merit through a fair and open competition. The Civil Service Recruitment Principles set out the circumstances in which appointments can be made as Exceptions to Fair and Open Merit-based appointments.

Between 4^th July and 4^th October 2024, the Home Office made 109 appointments by exception to the Civil Service Commission’s published Recruitment Principles:

• 78 were made under Exception 1 for temporary appointments;
• 27 were made under Exception 10 for conversion to permanency of suitable candidates appointed under Exception 1 above, and Exception 2 (support for government employment programmes);
• Two were made under Exception 3 for secondments; and
• Two were made under Exception 5 for the appointment of former civil servants.

The roles appointed during the period requested were to grades AA to Grade7. Below is a summary of the salary bands for these appointments by grade and number of roles.

N = National, L = London