Making Effective Decisions: Civil Service behaviour examples and how to write yours
Updated · 3 min read
Making Effective Decisions is about using evidence and good judgement to reach decisions, and being able to explain them. Assessors want to see how you thought: what information you gathered, what options you weighed, who you consulted, and why you chose what you did. The decision itself matters less than how you got there.
Making Effective Decisions is one of the nine behaviours in the Civil Service Success Profiles. If a job advert lists it, you'll usually write a behaviour statement for it at application, often up to 250 words, and may be asked about it again at interview. Our guide to behaviour statements covers how they're scored; this page goes deep on Making Effective Decisions alone.
What assessors look for
- You gathered the right information and checked it was reliable.
- You considered more than one option and weighed the risks of each.
- You consulted the right people, but took responsibility for the decision.
- You explained your decision clearly, and recorded it where that mattered.
How it changes with grade
Every behaviour is described at several levels, roughly: AA and AO, then EO, then HEO and SEO, then Grade 7 and Grade 6, then the Senior Civil Service. At AO and EO, decisions about your own work or a single case are ideal. At HEO and SEO, expect decisions with wider impact, made with incomplete information and with risks to manage. At Grade 7 and above, it's about complex decisions with competing priorities, often with ministers or senior leaders involved. Always read the indicators for the level on your advert, on the Civil Service Careers website, and use them as a checklist.
How the question is usually worded
- Please provide a behaviour statement for Making Effective Decisions.
- Tell us about a difficult decision you had to make and how you reached it.
- Describe a time you made a decision with incomplete information.
An example statement
I was responsible for booking venues for a series of regional training events for 300 staff. Two weeks before the first event, our main venue told us it could only take 60 people instead of the 80 we had booked. I had three options: move the event, split it into two smaller sessions, or reduce numbers. Before deciding, I checked attendee lists to see who was travelling furthest, asked the trainers whether they could run two sessions in one day, and got prices from two alternative venues. Moving venue would cost an extra £1,200 and confuse people who had already booked travel. Reducing numbers would leave 20 people without training they needed for a system launch. Splitting into morning and afternoon sessions cost nothing extra, and the trainers agreed. I chose to split the sessions, gave priority morning places to people travelling furthest, and emailed everyone the same day with clear new times. I recorded the decision and my reasons in the project log, so my manager could see the options I had considered. All 80 staff were trained on time, at no extra cost, and the feedback score for the event was 4.6 out of 5.
- Sets out the options clearly
- Uses evidence: costs, travel, trainer availability
- Explains the reasoning, and records it
- Shows the decision worked
Use an example from your own work, volunteering or study. Assessors read a lot of statements and can spot borrowed ones. The structure above is what to copy, not the story.
Common mistakes
- Describing the outcome without showing the reasoning that led to it.
- Only having one option, so there was no real decision to make.
- Making a decision alone that should have involved others, and not saying why.
Once your Making Effective Decisions statement is strong, save it. The same behaviour comes up again and again across departments, so next time you'll adapt it for the grade and role instead of starting from a blank page. See the STAR method for the structure behind every good statement.
Frequently asked questions
- Does it matter if my decision turned out to be wrong?
- Not necessarily. A sound decision based on the evidence you had, followed by what you learned when things changed, can still score well.
- How much detail should I give about the options?
- Enough to show you weighed them: one or two sentences each, with the reason you ruled it in or out.