Civil Service behaviour: Managing a Quality Service (with STAR example)

Updated · By the Tick the Spec team

Managing a Quality Service is about delivering service objectives with professional excellence, expertise and efficiency, while taking account of diverse customer needs. In practice, assessors want to see that you understand what your customers (the public, other teams, ministers) need, plan work to meet those needs, spot and fix problems, keep people informed, and balance quality with cost. A strong statement describes a service you were responsible for, a problem or improvement, and the difference it made to customers.

A note on changes (November 2026)

In July 2026 the Civil Service announced it will scrap Success Profiles in favour of a model that emphasises skills and expertise. At the time of writing we could not find a published replacement on GOV.UK, and many adverts still ask for behaviours. Follow the advert you are applying for.

What assessors look for, by grade

  • AA/AO: giving a good service to customers, following procedures, dealing with queries accurately and politely.
  • EO: understanding customer needs; creating clear plans that balance customer and business needs; keeping stakeholders informed; identifying common problems and proposing solutions; balancing quality with cost-effectiveness.
  • HEO/SEO: developing and reviewing systems that support professional excellence; setting priorities with stakeholders; identifying risks and resolving issues efficiently; responding to customer feedback.
  • G7 and above: designing services around users, setting standards, and managing performance and risk across a service.

Step by step

  1. Name the service and the customers, including any with different needs (for example people with disabilities or limited English).
  2. Describe the problem or opportunity, using feedback or data if you have it.
  3. Show how you planned the response and who you involved.
  4. Show attention to quality: checking, standards, accessibility.
  5. Show how you kept customers or stakeholders informed.
  6. Give the result for customers, ideally with evidence.

Worked example (fictional, EO level)

Invented for illustration. The person, service and figures are fictional.

Situation: I am an executive officer running a team that answers written enquiries from the public. Customer feedback showed that many people found our replies hard to understand, and repeat enquiries were rising.

Task: My manager asked me to improve the quality of replies without increasing the time each one took.

Action: I reviewed 50 recent replies and the repeat enquiries linked to them, and found that most confusion came from five standard paragraphs full of technical terms. I rewrote those paragraphs in plain English and tested them with colleagues from another team and two members of our customer panel, including one who uses a screen reader, which led me to restructure the headings. I set a simple quality check: each team member's replies were peer-reviewed twice a month against a short checklist. I updated our stakeholders in the policy team on the changes so their briefing matched.

Result: Over the next quarter, repeat enquiries fell and the average time per reply stayed the same. Customer satisfaction scores for clarity improved. The plain-English paragraphs are now used across the directorate.

About 230 words. It shows EO indicators: understanding customer needs, identifying a common problem, proposing a solution, keeping stakeholders informed, balancing quality and cost.

How behaviour statements are scored

Many departments score each behaviour on a 1 to 7 scale, and a Defra Digital blog post describes needing at least 4 on each assessment to move on; the candidate pack will say if different rules apply. When there are many applications, some campaigns sift first on a "lead" behaviour, usually the first one listed, so make that statement especially strong. Statements are usually read without your name, and text over the word limit may be ignored, so check the limit on the advert.

Other examples that can work

  • improving a process after complaints or feedback
  • making a service more accessible
  • setting up quality checks for a team
  • handling a service failure and keeping customers informed
  • balancing a tight budget against service standards

Pick the one where your own actions are clearest and the result is real.

Common mistakes

  • Describing good customer service in general rather than managing or improving a service.
  • No customer perspective: who benefited, and how do you know?
  • Ignoring diverse needs, which is part of the definition.
  • Quality at any cost. Show you balanced it with efficiency.
  • Results that are vague ("it went well"). Use real feedback or figures where you have them.

Tick the Spec asks who your customers were and what changed for them, then helps you write your own example to fit the indicators and word limit.

Read next: STAR method examples for supporting statements (250 words) · Civil Service grades explained: AA to Grade 7 (what each expects) · Success Profiles scrapped: what it means for Civil Service jobs

Sources

All guides