The Career Framework is a set of materials that defines the 9 job families across the GFF at all different grades. It is now ready for use and available via the interactive tool on One Finance.

The Career Framework has been built to provide consistent definitions and expectations for all roles across the GFF. It sets a baseline for personal and professional evaluation and helps you to explore future career opportunities and how you might get there.

The Career Framework was officially launched at the GFF Spring Festival in May 2021. From this point, all individuals are welcome to use and refer to the framework. Following this, the GFF team have worked with each Department on specific implementation plans. Phased adoption was rolled out across departments over 12 months.

Some Departments were ready and moved quickly as early adopters of the Framework, by aligning current roles and using the Framework to guide recruitment activity, for example. Others preferred to wait or wanted to align to the Framework more organically. We worked to shape an approach that works for each department and your department will kept you informed of the approach they are taking.

Aligned with our ambition, most of GFF aligned to the Framework by Summer 2022 and we are continuing to evolve the framework as part of our strategy. 

There are three areas of strategic focus connected to the GFF Strategy 2030 "skilled and talented" objective:

1. Enhancement - iterating the Job Families and ensuring they are relevant and future focussed

2. Skills - link to Skills Capture Tool and encouraging all GFF colleagues to self-assess their skills to build confidence and identify areas for growth

3. Career Stories - celebrating real people doing real roles across the GFF. 

The Framework provides you with a standard set of roles and options for movement and progression across GFF, not just in your department.  As an individual, you can use it to identify where you sit within the framework and to map your skills and experience against present and future roles. You can use the framework for your professional development and to steer career conversations with your manager.

You can also use the Framework if you currently sit outside of the Finance Function and are interested in joining. All entry routes and requirements are clearly highlighted.

As a line manager you can use the Framework to induct new staff and set out role requirements, to signpost suitable learning opportunities and options for qualification, and to support career development through identification of future opportunities that may be suitable for your staff.

You can also use the Framework to support recruitment; to help structure your performance and capability building conversations, using the framework as a standard to review team members against.

The framework is a very useful tool for recruitment. You can consider it your bank of ready-made job descriptions and person specifications, which you can refer to when you have an upcoming vacancy and use to shape your job descriptions.

We encourage all hiring managers to use the Career Frameworks to inform job descriptions, to help drive greater consistency across the function.  

As the Framework clearly illustrates progression opportunities beyond current role, you can use it to attract and retain a talented pool of employees who are keen to grow within GFF.

The Framework provides an excellent basis for you to map your career against. It allows you to explore the requirements for different roles at different levels all in one place, so you can make a targeted career plan and take advantage of relevant upskilling opportunities available to you.

You can use the information from the Framework to guide career conversations with your line manager and discuss your longer-term ambitions.

As we work to professionalise the Government Finance Function, we are using our Career Framework to set our expectations on professional qualifications for certain roles at certain levels across the Function. It is important to note that the requirement for qualification set out for each role is an aspiration and a position that we hope to move towards in time.

We recognise that not every person in roles shown as requiring a qualification will have a qualification from day one of the Framework being launched. That is OK – and we very much value the contribution and expertise of those of you in this position. We want to work with you to agree a plan for supporting you to qualify, or not, depending on your own circumstances and preference.

The specific requirements on qualification are set out against each role in the Framework. As a broad guide a qualification is “expected” for most G6 and SCS roles. 

Generally, our aspirations for qualification at lower grades are that it is ‘Recommended’. However, specific frameworks may set aspirations that qualification is ‘Essential’ at grades above G6.

Staff in G6 and SCS finance roles where the framework states qualification is “Essential", (or any other role that requires a qualification) who do not currently hold a professional finance qualification will be actively encouraged and supported to gain qualification through a number of different routes, but they should be reassured that they will not be required to change roles or vacate their posts if they do not take up this opportunity. However, it is worth noting that having a qualification or showing a commitment to qualify may help open up more opportunities for career moves across the function in the future.

We do expect that when any staff working in G6 or SCS roles without a qualification vacate their posts they will be replaced by qualified staff or staff actively working towards qualification.

It is accepted that it may take some time for all G6 and SCS roles to be held by qualified staff, due to staff studying towards qualification and those who choose not to gain a qualification.

It is accepted that it may take some time for all roles that require qualification to be held by qualified staff, due to staff studying towards qualification and those who choose not to gain a qualification.

Staff in finance roles that require a qualification who do not currently hold a professional finance qualification will be actively encouraged and supported to gain qualification through a number of different routes, but they should be reassured that they will not be required to change roles or vacate their posts if they do not take up this opportunity.

The Career Framework covers +90% of roles across the Government Finance Function. We recognise that some colleagues may not find a job family that matches their role exactly.

Colleagues in "other finance" and "non finance" often have bespoke, specialised and expert roles and are very much valued for their contribution and expertise of those of you in this position. 

The size and shape of finance teams vary significantly across departments which means we are unlikely to get complete coverage, however we are committed to reviewing the framework regularly and will create new job families, or definitions at new grades where significant gaps are discovered and it makes sense to do that. We have built the Framework to allow it to evolve as the Function does.

The Career Framework sets out a set of core roles that we would expect to see in most departments.  We recognise that the roles identified here won’t be a direct match in many cases. Dependent on the size of the department and the structure of the team you work in some roles may cross more than one job family and some roles may just be one component of a description in a job family.

The size of the department and the structure of the team you work in will determine the proportion of an overall role covered by a particular job role. Some roles may cross more than one job family.

Please choose the Job Family that describes the activities you undertake with most of your time. 

Colleagues from the GFF are working with individual Departments to support them to develop their own implementation plans taking account of local context and business priorities. Aligned with our ambition, most of the GFF aligned to the Framework by Summer 2022 and continue to evolve.

We hope that ALBs will align themselves with the framework to bring consistency. Our current plan is for the GFF team to work with departments in the first instance to support them to align with the framework.

We are happy to discuss implementation with ALBs though and would hope to provide support to shape the right approach for each organisation. Please contact the GFF People & Capability Team at gfa@hmtreasury.gov.uk. 

Resources and materials to support departments have developed, working with individual departments to respond to their particular needs. If you have a specific need, please contact the GFF People & Capability Team at gfa@hmtreasury.gov.uk. 

We have worked with a couple of departments as early adopters and will continue to update this set of questions as we work through the adoption process with them.

We have worked with colleagues from across the Government Finance Function to develop each of the definitions and the descriptions for our job families. We hope you can recognise the job that you do, even if it perhaps has a different name, or is made up of activities from across the different job families.

We continue to support individual departments to align to the framework, and part of this might involve some translation – so that you can more easily find your job title and / or grade. Your Head of Finance Professionalism may be able to help with any specific concerns you have or if you have further questions please contact the GFF People & Capability Team at gfa@hmtreasury.gov.uk. 

The framework is based on the standard Civil Service grading system, although we recognise that some departments have their own systems.

Your department should be able to tell you which grade your role maps to and help with translation to ensure the framework means something to you and your colleagues.

In a similar fashion to the senior roles within the strategic finance framework, we expect spending teams to have a mix of expertise, including financial qualification where applicable.

The framework sets out what ‘good’ looks like for each job family. Therefore, moving into the role you’d be expected to have some of the skills and experience, but with room to develop in post to be fully effective in the role.

There are already many networks and communities within GFF to support colleagues Communities (civilservice.gov.uk), including the newly launched Finance Business Partner network.

Whilst we do not envisage that every job family will launch a network, we expect adoption will mean that Departments map teams and roles across the job families. This will allow people to identify themselves and their peers, the first step to networking and sharing best practice.

You should be reassured that you will not be required to change roles or vacate your post as a result of your department adopting the Framework and the grade of your existing role will not change.

As part of adoption, Departments have aligned current roles to the job families and have started using the Framework to guide recruitment activity to enable overall alignment in the future.

The Career Framework sets the minimum qualification requirements expected at each grade and job family. Departments may choose to apply qualification as essential at lower grades if the business requires it.