Civil Service AO Career Progression?

newbie18892

I'm currently an AO in the civil service. Was previously a CO for two years. I'm interested if anyone could comment on the career progression they had from AO onwards?

I've heard a lot of mixed views. One AP I work with said that AO's get essentially "fast tracked" to AP level within a few years. Another said that nowadays there are so many AO's that they remain as such for years and years.

I know career development is ultimately up to the person themselves and their performance but I'm curious how others have gotten on. I'm the only AO in my office so I don't have anyone to ask.

doc22

It depends on the person and the role.

psicic

The automatic fast tracking of AOs is a thing of the past - long distant past, when few in the Civil Service had degrees. Having said that, I did hear there were some mild efforts in the last decade to promote AOs to AP as it was felt it was a historically underutilised career path, Union used to advocate for this a bit, but I actually don't know if that resulted in any sort of significant figures. Union would probably know. To me, it seems that, much like HEOs to AP, most AO to APs are earned by a mixture of work, luck (like being put on a section where you get to be in charge of projects you can successfully deliver) and interview skills. Some people get to AO level and stay there for years, some get promoted in short order.

Then again I know someone who spent over 10 years as a CO - could never get promoted, then finally got promoted to EO , nine months later to HEO and just over a year later to AP. They had everything they needed all along, apart from the interview skills to sell themselves, so once they figured that out, their rise was pretty meteoric.

Augme

The "AO fast-tracked to AP" is a thing of the distant past. Generally people promoted to AP are a fairly even mix of HEOs and APs. The most important thing is good examples and interview skills.

At this stage the AO grade really needs to be over hauled and a more modern system looked implemented. Scrap the AO grade and make HEO an open competition and have graduates come in at EO level would make far more sense. Although the Unions would not be in favour.

Chaos Black

In theory AO role is more focused on policy development. In reality, depends on the Department, area and the PO. Often AO and HEO is interchangeable now.

Regardless for HEOs and AOs, progressing to AP will come down to experience and ability to demonstrate enough AP competencies in the competitions. The former is somewhat down to luck, but also I would say you should not leave your career development to others. Identify where you lack experience in relation to competencies and look to gain it, whether via seeking it in current role or mobility.

Finally I would say, don't be in a rush to AP. You can learn a lot at AO grade and will have the time to develop. My experience is once you become an AP, yes you're expected to develop (as all staff should be doing), but also the expectation is you hit the ground running and already have the necessary experience/ability without hand-holding.

readoutloud

The AO and HEO roles are treated as interchangeable in many central government departments but the latter pays ~€15,000 more annually and has extra leave. Go figure...