The civil service consists of professional officials who carry out government policy and provide impartial advice to ministers. Civil servants are not political appointees: they keep their jobs when governments change and must serve any minister of any party with equal commitment. The most senior civil servant in each department is the Permanent Secretary.
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The principles guiding civil servants are set out in the Civil Service Code: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. They are based mainly in Whitehall in central London (which is sometimes used as a metonym for the civil service as a whole). Around half a million people work in the civil service across the UK.
You may be asked who the Permanent Secretary is, or what the four core values of the Civil Service Code are.
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