Civil Service Awards 2025 shortlist announced

Home Office is the most-shortlisted department, competing for seven gongs at this year's 20th anniversary ceremony

Photo: Total Politics

22 Oct 2025

A "gold standard" civil service talent development academy created by the Department for Work and Pensions and a Department for Education unit which led the largest expansion of free school meals in a generation are among 30 nominees shortlisted for the 2025 Civil Service Awards.

Judges received more than 2,500 nominations across 11 categories for this year's awards, which is a special 20th anniversary celebration of the best of the civil service.

Teams, officials and programmes in 15 departments and public bodies have been shortlisted for the awards, which are sponsored by Accenture and Mastek. The nominees have been announced for all awards except the Prime Minister's Award for Exceptional Public Service, which will be revealed later this year.

The Home Office is the most shortlisted department, with seven nominations, including two nominations for the Lifetime Achievement Award.

This year, an additional award has been launched in honour of the 20th anniversary of the Civil Service Awards. For the first time ever, civil servants will get to decide a winner of their own – voting for their favourite finalist from the below list of nominees to take home the People’s Choice Award. Voting is open now until 5pm, Friday 14 November.

Only civil servants can vote and it is one vote per person. You should use your government address (usually ending in gov.uk) to register your vote. Any non-government emails will not be counted.

Winners for all awards will be announced at a ceremony on 9 December.

'Gold standard for inclusive talent development'

The DWP has two chances of winning the Developing and Supporting People Award. Its Security Capability Team is nominated for its creation of a talent development scheme to tackle a gap in security skills which then became a cross-government academy.

The nomination says: "Through an innovative, centralised, and inclusive recruitment and development programme, the team attracted over 23,000 applicants over three campaigns, delivering bespoke hybrid training, achieving 100% retention over 3 years, and producing high-performing graduates – 41% of whom progressed to the next grade within 18 months.

"The initiative has now scaled into the Government Security Academy, providing talent across UK government departments and being cited in the Government Cyber Skills Strategy as a model for early talent development."

The nomination adds that the Security Academy has "set a gold standard for inclusive talent development, closing skills gaps, boosting diversity, and making the civil service an employer of choice".

It also says the programme "offers a replicable model for other professions facing similar recruitment and development challenges".

The department also received a nomination in this category for the work of DWP official Neil Osliffe, who designed and delivered a comprehensive training programme to address the lack of structured support for fraud investigators. The nomination says his efforts "led to measurable improvements", including higher-quality submissions to the Crown Prosecution Service, resulting in more successful prosecutions.

'It exemplifies civil service values'

DfE's School Food Unit has been nominated for the Delivering for Citizens Award for its rollout of the expansion of free school meals, which saw the threshold raised to include all children on Universal Credit, provide meals to an extra 500,000 children annually.

The nomination says the team combined "rigorous analysis, cross-departmental coordination, and stakeholder engagement" to deliver "a generational change" in school meals, working with organisations including the Department of Health and Social Care and Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

It says the reform "exemplifies the civil service values of integrity, objectivity, and commitment to public service, delivering tangible outcomes for children, families, and society".