Making Effective Decisions at each grade, from AA to SCS
Making Effective Decisions is scored against the level descriptor for your grade, so the same statement can pass at EO and fail at Grade 7. Here is what the behaviour looks like at each level, and how the expectations change as you move up.
Why the same behaviour changes by grade
The Success Profiles framework sets out level descriptors for this behaviour, and each builds on the last. The core stays constant, evidence, options, judgement, impact, but the scale of the decision, the quality of the information and the weight of the consequences all rise with grade.
Three things shift as you move up. First, scope: your own tasks, then your team or caseload, then services, then whole organisations. Second, ambiguity: junior decisions sit inside clear rules, senior ones are made with incomplete or contested evidence. Third, accountability: from knowing when to escalate, to owning decisions that boards and ministers rely on.
From the official guidance
The level descriptors are published in the Success Profiles guidance on GOV.UK at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles. Some departments attach the descriptor for the role to the job advert, so read both before writing.
Grade-by-grade expectations
Use this table to check whether your example is pitched at the right level before you write it up.
| Grade | What it looks like | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| AA / AO | Sound day-to-day decisions within clear guidance, knowing when to escalate | Settling a refund edge case within delegated limits |
| EO | Analysing information from several sources, deciding within policy on your own work | Rerouting deliveries after a sudden road closure |
| HEO | Weighing evidence, cost and risk on decisions affecting a team or service | Recommending settlement on an ambiguous insurance claim |
| SEO | Robust judgement on complex operational issues, balancing risk and service at pace | Granting risky system access with proportionate controls |
| Grade 7 | Evidence-based strategic decisions across a function, influencing finance and boards | Reallocating a £1.2m programme budget mid-year |
| Grade 6 | High-stakes decisions with contested evidence across programmes or directorates | Deciding whether to scale a national pilot with mixed results |
| SCS | Setting decision frameworks and owning choices of departmental consequence | Pausing and resetting a failing £30m programme |
For example, choosing a supplier for a £500 order is an HEO-level story. Choosing who holds a £4.5m annual contract, with audit scrutiny and mobilisation risk, is a Grade 7 story. Same behaviour, different weight.
Signs your example is below grade
The most common reason decision statements fail is not poor writing but an example pitched below the level of the role. Check for these warning signs before you draft.
- The decision could have been made by someone two grades below you with the same information.
- Nobody beyond your immediate team was affected by the outcome.
- There was no trade-off: one option was obviously right from the start.
- You needed no one else's input, challenge or sign-off at any point.
- The numbers in your result are small enough to fit a junior statement.
- Removing the decision from the story would change nothing: events would have happened anyway.
Tip
A quick test: ask what would have gone wrong if the decision had been made badly. If the honest answer is 'very little', the example is probably below the grade you are applying for.
How to pitch one example at the right level
If your example sits between levels, pitch it up: emphasise the ambiguity, the stakeholders you influenced, the risk you owned and the scale of the outcome. Do not inflate facts, but do not hide the senior elements either.
If you are short of grade-level examples, the finding examples guide shows where to look in your own history, and our SEO example statement shows what a well-pitched mid-level decision looks like written up.
Frequently asked questions
You can, but re-pitch it each time. For a junior application, emphasise the facts you checked and options weighed. For a senior one, emphasise ambiguity, stakeholders, the risk you owned and the scale of the result. If the example has no senior elements, choose a bigger one.
That is normal at every grade and does not weaken the example. Show that you gathered the evidence, formed the recommendation and carried it through the sign-off. At junior grades, escalating appropriately is itself a positive indicator. At senior grades, boards formally decide, but your recommendation is what gets scored.
Big enough to signal organisational consequence: budgets in six or seven figures, hundreds of staff, thousands of service users, or departmental-level risk. A senior statement with junior-scale numbers reads as below level however well it is written, so choose examples with real weight.
Yes, but simple ones. At AA and AO the comparison can be brief: two or three practical options, a quick check of cost or policy, and a clear reason for the choice. What assessors reject is a statement where no choice was visible at all, because then there is no decision to score.
Next step
Get the free STAR template — the same structure used in every example on this site.
Download the template pack