Work in Progress - Capacity and Capability in the Northern Ireland Civil Service: Follow-up Report

The Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) supports the Assembly, the Executive and the institutions of government. At 1 April 2025, the NICS workforce consisted of 24,500 members of staff working across various government departments to develop and implement government policies and help deliver services to the public of Northern Ireland. Therefore, getting the right capacity (having the ‘right-size’ workforce) and capability (the workforce having the requisite skills, knowledge and expertise) in the NICS to deliver the Programme for Government 2024-2027 is of vital importance.

We reported on ‘Capacity and Capability in the Northern Ireland Civil Service’ in November 2020.  In this report we will consider the progress made since the original report and aim to examine a range of issues including:

• Progress on the key themes from the 2020 report;
• Follow up on recommendations made in the 2020 report;
• Review of People Strategies, past and present; and
• Focus on key areas including leadership, strategic workforce planning and resourcing.

We aim to publish the finalised report in late Autumn 2025.