Commission Opens its Complaints Procedure and Publishes its First Workforce Statistics

The Civil Service Commission today opened its complaints and appeals procedure and published its first statistical release on the civil service of the Network.

A candidate who believes a competition was not run under the recruitment principles, or an official who believes the Civil Service Code has been breached, may complain to the Commission. A complaint should first be raised with the department concerned, which must reply within fifteen working days; if the reply does not resolve the matter, the complainant has twenty-eight days to write to the Commission. Complaints are decided by a panel of three Commissioners, and the decision is published in anonymised form.

The statistical release records the position at establishment on 6 September 2026 and activity during the transition period from 10 August to 5 September 2026. At establishment the service had 6,310 established posts, of which 5,842 were filled. During the transition period 214 competitions were run under the interim arrangements, attracting 12,406 applications, and 96 per cent of appointments were made under open competition. The register of interests carried 1,184 entries at establishment.

The Commission will publish statistics quarterly, and the first full quarterly release, covering the quarter ending 30 September 2026, will be published in October 2026. The complaints procedure and the release are set out on the Complaints and Appeals and Statistics pages of this site.