Developing Self and Others SCS Example Statement (750 Words)

SEighteen months after a merger created our group of 4,500 staff spanning policy, digital and operations, the evidence told one story from every direction. Engagement scores sat 12 points below the civil service benchmark, exit interviews showed talented people leaving because the new leadership felt closed to them, applications to our senior talent scheme had fallen 40%, and every senior appointment was scrutinised for which legacy organisation the winner had come from. Both legacy organisations had run their own talent schemes, with different criteria, different sponsors and deep mutual suspicion; new joiners described two cultures sharing one building.

TAs director general I sponsored a group-wide talent strategy — an open emerging leaders programme, structured sponsorship for underrepresented talent, and reverse mentoring across the top team — to rebuild trust in development and fill most senior roles internally within four years. Every appointment would remain openly competed; the strategy's job was to make internal candidates genuinely competitive.

AI began by listening before designing anything. Over two months I held 14 open sessions across the group's sites and a confidential channel for those who did not trust open sessions. Three messages came back consistently: development depended on who you knew from the legacy organisations, the old scheme picked the same profiles, and nobody senior ever admitted to still learning. Those three messages became the design brief. Alongside the programme I built the missing plumbing: a group-wide skills register so talent was visible beyond line management, protected learning time written into business plans, and a leadership faculty of our own senior people teaching what they actually knew — including a module I taught myself on leading through ambiguity. I launched an emerging leaders programme with 60 places a year, open to application rather than nomination, with selection criteria published in advance and an independent panel chair. To counter the legacy favouritism problem, I required every selection panel to include members from both legacy organisations plus an external assessor, and I published the demographic breakdown of each cohort. The first cohort was 55% from the smaller legacy body, which quietened the loudest criticism. For sponsorship, I paired 30 high-potential staff from underrepresented groups with members of my executive team, and made it stick by reviewing the pairings quarterly. I sponsored two people myself: an operations manager from a minority ethnic background who had been overlooked twice, and a policy lead returning from adoption leave whose confidence had been battered. Both needed different things — one access, one advocacy — and I learned as much from them as they did from me. Reverse mentoring addressed the third message. Every member of the executive team, including me, was paired with a junior colleague from a different background, with a simple rule: the mentor speaks first and the executive does not defend. My own mentor, a 24-year-old digital apprentice, told me our executive communications read like they were written to reassure ourselves. She was right, and I changed how we wrote them. Year two brought a slump: applications dipped when the novelty faded and two high-profile participants left. Rather than rebranding, I asked leavers and stayers why, published the answers, and adjusted — shorter modules, more line-manager involvement, clearer links to live vacancies. Applications recovered the following year. There was resistance. A non-executive director questioned the cost — £550,000 over three years — during an austerity review; I defended it against the £2 million we were spending annually replacing leavers. Two directors treated the programme as HR's job; I moved talent onto the agenda of their own performance reviews, which changed the behaviour within a quarter. I kept the strategy honest with an annual independent evaluation, published internally in full, including the year-two finding that disabled participants were progressing more slowly — which led us to redesign the stretch assignments with adjustments built in from the start.

RFour years on, applications to the programme have tripled, 38 of the first 120 participants have been promoted into senior roles, and internal fill for senior posts has risen from 41% to 68%. Representation of women, disabled staff and minority ethnic staff in the top three grades has each risen by at least a quarter, regretted attrition among identified talent has halved to 6%, and engagement has closed the 12-point gap to the benchmark. The evaluation model has been shared across the wider public sector. Two of my executive team now chair talent boards themselves, and the group weathered a later restructure without losing a single identified successor.