As the civil service’s flagship talent development programme, the Fast Stream is often a priority area for civil service reform efforts – and this government has followed many others in making changes to it. But despite welcome announcements on Fast Stream pay and relocation, a more systematic assessment of the scheme’s performance is still missing.
A new Institute for Government report seeks to fill that gap. It is based on almost 600 responses to an exclusive survey, focus groups of current and former fast streamers and applicants, and interviews with decision-makers past and present. Our research reveals the complex reality of the Fast Stream, including how it has improved over time – for instance on diversity, the training offer and the recruitment process. But it also sets out several challenges the Fast Stream continues to face.
The core problem is that the civil service wants the Fast Stream to do too much. We found that the programme tries to balance three competing (sometimes conflicting) goals – supporting leadership development, acting as the default route for graduate recruitment, and training in-house specialists. This lack of a single clear purpose for the fast stream makes it difficult to make key strategic decisions – for example about the kind of work fast streamers are expected to do, or how large the scheme should be. As a result, the scheme falls short of both the civil service’s ambitions for it and fast streamers’ expectations. In the words of one of our research participants:
“The CS needs to have a serious think about what the Fast Stream is for. Is it to develop future leaders and streamline them towards leadership roles (as I understand it used to be) through stretching placements and challenging experiences, or is it just the default option for graduates to join the civil service (which is what it is now).”
This confusion needs to end. The Fast Stream should be focused on a single goal: developing future generations of senior civil servants. This must be the starting point for a series of reforms, which would also help to address the dissatisfaction we found among fast streamers in several areas.
Firstly, the Fast Stream should be smaller. The 2010s saw it balloon in size, driven by departmental demand for fast streamer resource rather than any coherent central strategy. The trend has since been partially reversed, but Fast Stream intakes are still significantly larger than before the growth spurt of the 2010s. A smaller scheme would allow for better quality control of Fast Stream postings, and higher-quality development support for fast streamers.
While reducing the scheme’s size will help raise standards for postings, the way Fast Stream roles are commissioned also needs to change. FSET and the professions need to ensure postings are stretching and build the skills sought in future civil service leaders. And setting the expectation centrally that the standard Fast Stream journey includes a secondment outside of central government would also be a positive step.
Fast Stream pay should also change. Despite positive recent announcements, we found that the lack of pay alignment between fast streamers and those at the same grade level in the civil service but outside the scheme creates incentives for fast streamers to exit early for better-paid jobs, undermining the Fast Stream’s function as a talent pipeline. Indeed, out of 237 former fast streamers who completed our survey, 96 (41%) told us they left the scheme early for other roles. To help address this, Fast Stream pay should be at least equal to pay for civil servants at the same notional grade level – a change made more manageable by a smaller scheme.
The relocation expectation is also a major concern of applicants, and may be driving talented candidates outside of London away from the Fast Stream. Recently introduced regional pilots – guaranteeing that fast streamers will have all their postings in the same area – are a positive development. They should become a permanent feature of the scheme.
For this new vision for the Fast Stream to be realised, civil service leadership, including the cabinet secretary, the chief people officer and permanent secretaries, needs to own it. Ministerial backing will also be crucial, as it has been to previous successful reform efforts.
Reforming the Fast Stream must be a central part of the government’s wider civil service reform efforts. The prize – a smaller, more coherent scheme helping the civil service strategically manage its pool of future leaders – is well worth the effort.
Teodor Grama is a research assistant on the Institute for Government's s civil service and policy making teams and the author of Changing course: How to reform the civil service fast stream