Civil Service behaviour examples: a STAR example for each of the 9 behaviours

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: I led a small team processing grant applications for a local business support scheme, which had a fixed budget for the year.

Task: Midway through the year a new national policy on high-street recovery was announced, and I needed to make sure our scheme still supported it.

Action: I read the policy and the guidance behind it, then mapped our eligibility criteria against its priorities. I found that a third of our applications came from areas the policy targeted, but our criteria didn't favour them. I wrote a one-page note for my manager setting out two options, with the risks of each, and met colleagues in the economic development team to check our data.

Result: My manager took the second option to the programme board, which approved revised criteria. In the following quarter the share of grants going to priority areas rose from 33% to 48%, within the same budget.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: In a customer contact team of 12, our process for logging complaints used three separate spreadsheets, and the same case was often entered twice.

Task: I wanted to cut the duplication without buying new software, and bring the team with me.

Action: I asked the team where the process slowed them down and collected their ideas in a shared document. Using our existing case system, I built a single form with the fields everyone needed. I tested it with two volunteers for a fortnight, adjusted it based on their feedback, then explained to the whole team why we were changing and how it would save time.

Result: Duplicate entries fell from about 40 a month to fewer than 5, and the time to log a complaint dropped from around 10 minutes to 4. Two other teams have since adopted the form.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: I was responsible for allocating training places for a regional team of 60 when the budget was cut by a quarter.

Task: I had to decide who would attend mandatory and optional courses, knowing some managers would be unhappy.

Action: I gathered data on which qualifications were legally required for each role and which certificates were due to expire. I set out three allocation options with their costs and risks, invited challenge from two team leaders, and agreed clear criteria with my manager. I then explained the decision and the reasons to all managers in writing, and offered alternatives, such as online learning, for courses we couldn't fund.

Result: Every legally required qualification stayed in date, we stayed within budget, and no formal complaints were raised about the process.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: I became team leader of eight caseworkers after a restructure that had left morale low and objectives unclear.

Task: I needed to make sure everyone understood what we were trying to achieve, and to rebuild trust.

Action: In my first week I held one-to-ones with each person to understand their concerns. I then ran a team session to agree our three priorities for the quarter and who would lead on each, and shared a simple weekly progress update. When I noticed one colleague's ideas were regularly talked over in meetings, I changed the format so everyone contributed in turn, and I made a point of crediting people's work in our monthly report.

Result: Within three months the team cleared a backlog of 120 cases, and our staff survey score for 'my manager recognises my work' rose from 52% to 81%.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: Our service was moving from paper forms to an online application, and many of our users were older people who were worried about the change.

Task: I was asked to explain the change to users and persuade a sceptical partner charity to help promote it.

Action: I wrote a plain-English guide with screenshots and tested it with five users, rewriting the parts they found confusing. I met the charity's manager, listened to their concerns about digital exclusion, and agreed that we would keep a phone route for anyone who couldn't use the form. I then presented the plan to their volunteers, answered their questions, and checked their understanding with a short follow-up email.

Result: The charity agreed to run help sessions for our users. In the first two months, 70% of applications came through the online form, and the number of calls asking how to apply halved.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: I worked in a policy team that relied on data from an analysis team in another department, and deadlines were often missed on both sides.

Task: I wanted to build a better working relationship so that we could deliver a quarterly report on time.

Action: I set up a monthly call with my counterpart in the analysis team, and we agreed a shared timetable showing what each team needed from the other and when. I invited their analysts to our planning meetings so they understood how the data was used. When one of their team was off sick at a critical point, I rearranged our work so we could give them extra time, and I checked in with my own team about workloads.

Result: The next three quarterly reports were delivered on time, and the analysis team's manager asked to use our shared timetable with other policy teams.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: I managed a team of five, and two members wanted to progress but had little experience of drafting formal correspondence.

Task: I wanted to build their skills and reduce the team's reliance on me for complex letters.

Action: I agreed development objectives with each of them and paired them with an experienced colleague for a month. I gave them progressively harder drafts, with written feedback on each, and delegated the final sign-off of routine letters once their quality was consistent. I also asked for their feedback on my coaching and changed how I gave comments, as they found line-by-line edits less useful than a short summary.

Result: Within four months both were signing off routine correspondence, and one was successfully promoted. The time I spent checking letters fell by around five hours a week.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: I ran a team handling licence applications, where customers were complaining about long waits and unclear updates.

Task: I needed to improve the service quality without extra staff.

Action: I analysed six months of complaints and found that most were about not knowing what was happening, rather than the wait itself. I agreed with stakeholders a target of updating every customer within five working days, introduced automatic status emails using our existing system, and set up a weekly review of cases at risk of missing the target. I also added a short feedback question to our closing email.

Result: Complaints fell by 45% over the next quarter, and 89% of customers who answered the feedback question said they were kept informed, up from 54%.

Illustrative example (fictional)

Situation: A change in the law meant our team had six weeks to update guidance used by 300 frontline staff, instead of the usual three months.

Task: I was responsible for delivering accurate guidance on time.

Action: I broke the work into milestones, agreed priorities with my manager, and asked each team member to own one section. When a legal review took longer than expected, I reassessed the workload, moved one colleague onto the review backlog and agreed with stakeholders that one lower-priority section would follow a week later. I checked progress in a short daily meeting but left people to manage their own sections.

Result: The core guidance was published two days before the deadline, and the remaining section a week later as agreed. Frontline queries about the change were lower than for the previous update.