I was an AA (Administrative Assistant) for 20 years, when the time was right for me to progress there were few opportunities, when there were plenty of opportunities the time wasn't right for me personally. In this time I had 2 children, 2 major moves Durham - Devon - Yorkshire and was both full and part time. I had my first promotion aged 39 and have been promoted every 4 years since, I am now in my 50s and an SO (Senior/ Senior Executive Officer). In the last 30+ years the Civil Service has become a more diverse and accepting employer and so many obstacles have been removed to enable career progression for all who want it. Flexi time and now hybrid working are a huge bonus to enable a better work/life balance. I have recently been classed as disabled and have had a lot of support from my team and wider business area. Mine has been a varied career and with the encouragement of various line managers and colleagues I've more than exceeded my own hopes and expectations. Hard work, perseverance, personal development and self belief are key for a fulfilling civil service career.

I liaise with HMRCs Risk & Intelligence and Compliance Teams to ensure each side knows what work is to be delivered and when. The Risk and Intelligence Team identify potential non-compliance and the Compliance Teams are those who open enquiries and bring in the money to fund Government spending and to educate individuals and companies about their tax obligations. Together and regularly we discuss requirements for the forthcoming months and year - working towards the Governments strategic priorities, balancing case delivery with known resource to work these cases. I play a key role in ensuring work is delivered in a timely manner and to expected requirements. I also intervene and problem solve when issues arise - anything from, missing data, staff absence and Government priorities changing (e.g. resource deployed during the Covid pandemic to assist on the various new schemes and Compliance officers unable to visit traders).

As the main liaison between HMRC's risking team and Compliance Team I know my actions ensure there is work available for staff, that this work is varied and that ultimately this provides the Government of the day with the funds they need to ensure their priorities are covered. Changing priorities can mean that projects can be pulled at short notice or if a project is particularly successful requirements may change to increase the numbers delivered. It's a lot of responsibility to ensure thousands of enquiry cases are delivered to bring in the funds that keep the country running but when I know I've done all I can to ensure a smooth process, it's a good day.

You need to believe in yourself and take any development opportunity offered to you. Training and learning is important and is encouraged so you can do your job effectively and develop skills that can help you throughout your career. Constant development is important for you, your team and the wider business. If you are interested in pursuing something - consult with your manager to see if they can help identify opportunities or courses you can attend. Not all courses are internal and in some instances the department will pay to attend external courses or attain professional qualifications. There are also great training and development schemes that exist in HMRC

Due to the then imminent departure from the European Union a speedier and more effective process needed to be developed for International Trade authorisation work as HMRC did not have enough staff to continue the existing manual checks (these checks were not needed when trading within Europe so would increase significantly once we left the EU). I developed, built and ran a process that gathered data in bulk from multiple sources - both internal HMRC and third party data sources - this ensured that HMRC met key deadlines to ensure that businesses throughout the UK were able to trade with the Rest of the World once Brexit was finalised. Due to the increased volume of International Trade the old process was not sustainable and with assistance from colleagues created a tool that is still in use and used daily.