As the Deputy will be aware, the Public Appointments Service (PAS) is the independent centralised provider of professional recruitment, assessment and selection services for the Civil Service.
The initiation of an inter-departmental recruitment campaign for any particular civil service grade is determined by such factors as identified workforce planning requirements and the need to establish priorities for targeted recruitment into the civil service to meet specific service and skill needs. In this context, given, for example, the programme of inter-departmental competitions currently being held by PAS it is currently expected that the next such competition for this grade will take place next year.