Civil Service Casework Skills Test: Format, Scoring and How to Prepare

The Civil Service Casework Skills Test is the online test for casework roles at AO and EO. It has three parts: two untimed, and a third timed at 10 minutes. Allow about an hour. The score is not bankable, so you sit it again for every vacancy that asks for it.

It is also the most job-like of the eight Civil Service online tests. Casework is reading evidence accurately, deciding proportionately, and processing without error under time, and the three parts map onto those three things in order. Preparing for the test is preparing for the job.

The format: three parts, one of them timed

Gov.uk does not publish the total number of questions. The untimed parts have no clock, only the general rule that the test closes after 25 minutes of inactivity and has to be relaunched. This test and its customer service sibling are the only Civil Service online tests with a timed section, which is why candidates who have sat the Judgement Test are sometimes caught out by Part 3.

What each part is really testing

Part 1 is a test of the distance between "probably" and "definitely". The scenario and the documents are the whole universe: the question is never what is likely in real life, but what these specific emails and letters establish. "Definitely" means the documents say it in terms or make it unavoidable. "Probably" means they point one way without closing the question. "Cannot say" is a correct and frequent answer, not an admission of failure: if the documents do not settle the point, that is the verdict, however tempting the inference. Caseworkers who read into documents what is not there are the ones whose decisions get overturned.

Part 2 is behaviour-style judgement at AO and EO level, closest to Making Effective Decisions and Managing a Quality Service. The effective actions in a casework scenario share a shape: check the record before acting, act within your authority, record what you did and why, and escalate in proportion to the risk. The ineffective ones are the failures of a new caseworker: acting on an assumption, overstepping your authority to be helpful, escalating everything, or escalating nothing. Each action is rated on its own, so two actions in one scenario can both be effective.

Part 3 is pure accuracy under time. Ten minutes is short, and the work is the sort casework systems depend on: a reference number that does not match the record, a transposed date, a name spelled two ways. There is nothing to interpret, only the risk of being quick and wrong. Read each item against its source once, carefully, rather than twice at speed, and do not let a hard item eat the time the easy ones need. Where a reasonable adjustment applies to the timed section, the extension is 25, 50, 75 or 100 per cent.

A Part 1 example of the kind the test uses

This is not a real item; it is built to show how the five-point scale works.

The habit to build is to ask, for every statement, "where in the documents is that?" If you can point to it, it is definite. If you can point to something that leans that way, it is probable. If you are pointing at your own experience, it is cannot say.

How the test is scored

Your responses are compared with a representative comparison group and reported as a percentile: the 60th percentile means you scored better than 60 per cent of that group. There is a system-set minimum standard for each grade level, and candidates below it are rejected at that point. No numeric pass mark is published anywhere official; any figure on a preparation site is a guess.

The minimum is also not the bar. After the deadline the recruiter reviews all scores and may raise the pass mark, weighing how many candidates they can invite and the impact on protected groups. Gov.uk is explicit that meeting the minimum does not guarantee an invitation. Your score and some automatically generated feedback appear in the Civil Service Jobs application centre, but there is no feedback on specific answers, for security reasons.

Because the test is not bankable, a pass does nothing for your next application. You sit it afresh for each vacancy, even at the same grade, and a fail can be retaken in any future application.

Where it sits in the process

Recruiters are advised to run online tests before the full application form, so that candidates provide supporting evidence only after the test has done its sifting. The invitation arrives soon after you start the application, and the test deadline is the same as the application deadline. Where a vacancy uses more than one test, they may be sequenced: you meet the minimum on one before being invited to the next.

Two consequences follow. Start early, because gov.uk asks you to raise any query at least two working days before the deadline. And do not treat a pass as something left behind: hiring managers may require a supervised retake for candidates invited to interview, so the result has to be one you could reproduce in a room.

The Customer Service Skills Test, briefly

Customer service roles at AA/AO and EO use a sibling test with the same three-part shape: a Part 1 where you choose one of three responses to a customer message, six scenarios on the four-point scale, and the same 10-minute timed section checking records or entering details. The one material difference is that a Customer Service Skills Test pass is banked for six months within the same grade grouping, where a Casework pass is not. The full set of eight tests and how banking works are covered in the guide to Civil Service online tests.

Logistics and adjustments

Gov.uk links an unscored practice version of each test. The practice tests are shorter but look exactly like the real ones, and for this test that matters: the Part 1 scale and the Part 3 timed screen are far easier the second time you see them. Take the practice test on the device you will use for the real thing. A larger screen is recommended over a phone, and Part 3 is where a small screen costs most.

The official advice is otherwise plain: a quiet place, a stable connection, read the instructions, and answer every question.

Reasonable adjustments are a legal duty. You are asked at application whether you need one and the recruiter confirms it. Supporting documents may be requested, but gov.uk is clear that you should still ask. For this test the relevant adjustments are the extension to the timed section and the plain-text alternative to the images in Part 3. The tests are audited to WCAG 2.1 AA.

What the test feeds into: the caseworker interview

Pass, and the next stage is the application form and then an interview that asks for the same qualities in your own words. A compliance caseworker interview is decided largely on Making Effective Decisions: evidence checked, a decision reached inside guidance, and that decision explained to someone who may not welcome it. The grade sets the pitch. At AO the panel wants to hear that you followed the process accurately and knew when to ask; the AO interview questions show what that sounds like. At EO the decisions are yours within the guidance and you are expected to own them, which the EO interview questions cover.

The test and the interview are the same assessment at different resolutions. If Part 1 taught you to point at the document before you commit, and Part 2 taught you to check, act within your authority, record and escalate in proportion, you already have the spine of a passing caseworker answer.