Case Study

The Civil Service – Closer to Home

The Civil Service supports the government of the day to implement its policies effectively on behalf of every community across the UK. The UK government had come to the conclusion that the best way to make decisions about people’s lives in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, plus the north, south, east and west of England, was to have key people in those places, closer to the challenges, problems and opportunities there.

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ED&I in Wales

+6%

Vacancy Fill in Northern Ireland

+13%

Highlights

How a once-in-a-generation recruitment campaign brought government closer to the people

  • 1
    A game-changing integrated nationwide campaign, challenging ingrained stereotypes and assumptions.
  • 2
    Increasing not only the diversity of applicants, but quality and quantity too.
  • 3
    Rise in successful hires made.

Challenge

The power base of the UK Civil Service has been Whitehall, central London – not just for decades but hundreds of years. This wasn’t just a recruitment campaign designed to change an organisation. It was a campaign to turn round centuries of history and change the way the different parts of this country are run. It was going to be a huge challenge.

  • 1
    Challenging the traditional stereotype of who a civil servant was (with misperceptions that you need to be male, white, privately educated, London-based) and where they worked.
  • 2
    Reaching new and diverse audiences of talented people across the country, enabling them to realise they could be a civil servant, building a career with an impact like no other.

Solution

  • 1
    In a feat of logistics our project management, client services and creative teams collaborated with our client on a national tour to gain a comprehensive picture of the modern-day civil service in a period of giant – but positive – change.
  • 2
    We travelled the country – from Belfast to Cardiff, Edinburgh to Manchester, Newcastle to Bristol – interviewing and filming the widest range of civil servants imaginable.

What we delivered

We gathered hundreds of stories – from those just starting their careers to those in positions of power, running multibillion pound government departments and employing tens of thousands of people. It was the most comprehensive and surprising picture you could get of the modern-day civil service in a period of giant – but positive – change.

01

Across digital (geo-targeted), social, film and print channels, we told the story of how the civil service was now becoming a truly UK-wide organisation, with big decisions being made locally by employees close to the places and people being affected.

02

Enabling new and diverse talent to see that in they could become influential government professionals without having to move their lives and families to London.

01

Across digital (geo-targeted), social, film and print channels, we told the story of how the civil service was now becoming a truly UK-wide organisation, with big decisions being made locally by employees close to the places and people being affected.

02

Enabling new and diverse talent to see that in they could become influential government professionals without having to move their lives and families to London.

RESULTS

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Quality

So far, we’ve increased vacancy fill rates in Northern Ireland by 13%, in Scotland by 10%, in Yorkshire and the North East by 4%, in the West Midlands by 6% and in Wales by 2%.

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Quantity

The careers site pages received 140,000+ hits in Yorkshire & the North East, 111,000+ hits in the West Midlands, 40,000+ hits in Northern Ireland, 109,000+ hits in Scotland, and 58,000+ hits in Wales.

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Diversity

We increased ED&I representation in Yorkshire by 12%, in Wales by 6%, in Scotland by 4% and in the North East by 4%.

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