Changing and Improving: Civil Service Behaviour Examples
What Changing and Improving assesses, how to write a strong STAR example, and worked examples at HEO and SEO scope.
**TL;DR.** Changing and Improving is one of the 9 Civil Service behaviours. Assessors look for evidence that you proactively identify opportunities to improve processes, test changes, and deliver measurable outcomes. Strong examples show you spotting the problem, designing an intervention, and verifying impact.
What Changing and Improving assesses
This behaviour rewards initiative. At junior grades, it is about suggesting small process improvements within your team. At senior grades, it is about leading organisational change and transformation programmes. In every case, the scoring pattern is the same: identify a specific problem, design a specific response, measure the outcome.
Worked HEO example (250 words)
*As an HEO casework manager I noticed that my team's average case turnaround time had risen from 12 days to 19 days over six months. I asked my line manager whether I could investigate. I mapped the casework process step by step and timed each step using two weeks of live cases. I identified that 4 of 11 process steps were waiting on input from a separate team that had recently restructured, and that 60% of our delay was concentrated in those four steps. I drafted a short proposal to merge the two teams' weekly catch-ups and create a shared escalation log. I tested it with my line manager, the lead in the other team, and three caseworkers before formalising. Within four weeks, average turnaround dropped to 11 days — below the original baseline. The new process was documented in the team handover pack and was adopted by two adjacent casework teams the following quarter.*
Worked SEO example (250 words)
*As an SEO leading a small policy team, I inherited a consultation process that produced 900 responses per consultation and took three weeks to analyse by hand. I commissioned an intern-led pilot to build a lightweight NLP analysis tool using the department's existing data science sandbox. I secured £8k of data science time, defined the testing criteria with the Director of Analysis, and ran a pilot on an archived consultation dataset before deploying on a live consultation. The tool cut analysis time from 15 working days to 4, with a quality audit showing 96% agreement between automated and manual coding. I built in a manual review step for the contested 4% of responses. The tool has since been adopted by two other policy teams in the department.*
What scores 1 at Changing and Improving
Vague descriptions of "continuous improvement". Claiming you are "always looking to improve". Skipping the specific action you took. Missing the outcome.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Changing and Improving in the Civil Service?
Changing and Improving is one of the 9 Civil Service behaviours defined in the Success Profiles framework. It assesses whether candidates proactively identify opportunities to improve processes, test changes, and deliver measurable outcomes.
How do I structure a Changing and Improving behaviour example?
Use STAR. Start with a specific problem (the Situation and Task). Spend 60% of your word count on the Action — what you specifically did to design and test the improvement. Finish with a measurable Result. Generic "continuous improvement" language without a specific intervention scores poorly.
What makes a strong Changing and Improving example?
Specific named problem with data (e.g., "turnaround rose from 12 to 19 days"), a specific intervention (meetings merged, tool built, process redesigned), a test or pilot phase before full rollout, and a measurable result attributable to your intervention. Strong examples also show how the change spread beyond your immediate team.