Report

The Alternative People survey 2026

This report from UK think tank Re:State discusses the findings from their new Alternative People survey.

Re:State’s new Alternative People Survey, run with Civil Service World and Public First, asked 1,747 civil servants how Whitehall is really working. The new Government has moved quickly to reorganise the centre, but the Survey suggests that structural change alone will not fix how civil servants are recruited, promoted and managed.

The findings on performance management are stark. More than three-quarters of respondents do not think poor performance is managed well, little changed from last year, and most say managers are incentivised to move poor performers on rather than manage them out.

Talent fares little better. Only one in six believe internal promotion picks the right people. Where departments have run voluntary exit schemes, respondents were four times as likely to say those leaving were high performers as poor performers.

There has been real progress on technology, with AI use rising from under a third of respondents to more than four in five in a year.

The Survey shows a civil service that can change quickly when given the means, but whose approach to managing people has barely moved.