UK has fourth most effective civil service in the world, says survey

The International Civil Service Effectiveness (InCiSE) Index – the first of its kind - used data sources from 31 countries to assess how well a country’s central government civil service performed.

They were assessed on overall effectiveness and on functions that include tax administration, inclusiveness, capabilities, openness, integrity, human resources management, crisis/risk management, regulation, fiscal and financial management, digital service, social security administration and policy making.

The index is a collaboration between the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and the think-tank Institute for Government, which said the findings would enable civil servants to see where countries performed well and identify areas for improvement.

According to the index, the UK ranked top for policy making, openness and social security administration, performing particularly well on the quality of policy advice, including whether it is evidence based.

It said the main area needing further attention was crisis/risk management, where the UK’s performance was just above average.

On digital services, the UK scored relatively highly for the cross-border mobility of services but less well against other themes considered.