Functional Standards
A suite of management standards and associated documentation to guide people working in and with the UK government.
Introductory resources
Introductory resources for anyone using functional standards.
Functional Standards
Functional standards exist to create a coherent, effective and mutually understood way of doing business within government organisations and across organisational boundaries, and to provide a stable basis for assurance, risk management and capability improvement. They support value for money for the taxpayer, and continuity of implementation. These standards are
mandated for use across central government, and may also be adopted by other public sector organisations.
GovS 001, Government functions sets expectations for the consistent management of functions (and functional standards) across government. The remaining standards, GovS 002 onward, set expectations about specific types of functional work, such as project delivery or commercial.
Together, these documents form a suite of management standards that support consistent and coherent ways of working. Further standards and associated guidance may be added in due course.
This 2 minute animation gives an introduction to the functional standards:
How can functional standards help me?
If you have comments or questions about the suite as a whole, please contact standards@cabinetoffice.gov.uk. For more information on the use of individual standards, please follow the links to individual functional pages or contact the relevant functional team.
Detailed guidance for using functional standards
Please refer to the below link for a collection of guidance documentation associated with the suite of functional standards
Updates to this page
Published 4 November 2020Last updated 25 October 2021 + show all updates
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new organisation of the collection and updates to the introductory paragraphs.
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Added Guide to continuous improvement against functional standards.
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Addition of 'Guide to functional standards'.
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Addition of link to "Government Functional Standard GovS 001: Government Functions".
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First published.