Surge and Rapid Response Team: how we can support your organisation
The Surge and Rapid Response team (SRRT) is the operational arm of the Operational Delivery Profession. We are a flexible, deployable team of over 700 skilled civil servants who enhance operational resilience across the Civil Service.
Since our creation in 2015, we have undertaken over 700 deployments into more than 65 government organisations, supporting some of the highest priority operational challenges across government.
What we offer
We can help your organisation to:
- maintain service levels during demand pressures, with rapid deployment of staff already cleared to SC level
- scale resource for short-term need without permanent commitments, providing better value for taxpayer money
- plan with certainty — we have one clear day rate that covers all costs including planning, logistics and management, with no hidden costs or finders’ fees
- avoid service failures and reputational damage by using skilled colleagues who understand your customers and can hit the ground running
- put resource anywhere it is needed — our contracts allow colleagues to work anywhere in the UK or internationally at short notice
When to use SRRT
We are designed to support departments in three scenarios.
Planned peaks
Seasonal demand that you can predict but cannot resource permanently, such as tax deadlines, benefit processing peaks, election periods and census activity.
Recent examples include:
- taking more than half a million calls from customers about Child Benefit at HMRC
- deploying to Border Force to process passengers arriving in the UK during busy summer months
Unexpected demand
Unplanned policy changes or events requiring immediate additional capacity, such as emergency schemes, policy implementations, legislative changes and digitalisation.
Recent examples include:
- processing 12,890 XL Bully exemption applications at the Animal and Plant Health Agency
- handling almost 30,000 subject access genealogy requests at the Ministry of Defence
Crisis response
National emergencies requiring rapid operational mobilisation, such as evacuations, pandemic response and natural disasters.
Recent examples include:
- supporting the Grenfell Tower Inquiry with responses to public and political correspondence, including parliamentary questions
- supporting the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in repatriating British nationals from Afghanistan following the fall of Kabul
What makes SRRT different
Unlike external contingent labour, SRRT colleagues are permanent civil servants with the knowledge, skills and experience to adapt quickly to changing priorities.
Our teams work on flexible contracts covering varied hours and locations. Deployed colleagues can retain in-house line management from our central team if required, and our model allows you to scale up or down as your needs change.
How we prioritise requests
Requests are assessed against four prioritisation levels to ensure resource goes where it is needed most.
| Priority | Definition |
|---|---|
| Crisis | A national or regional emergency (a direct Ministerial or COBR request) |
| High | Totally unexpected demand that clearly supports delivery of a Plan for Change milestone or agreed operational priority outlined by Heads of Profession |
| Medium | Known or expected demand that clearly supports delivery of a Plan for Change milestone or agreed operational priority outlined by Heads of Profession |
| Low | Any other request |
How to request support
Contact us at srrtcustomerenquiries@hmrc.gov.uk.
We will help you scope your requirements, agree timelines and define the expected outcomes of the deployment. We work with you as partners, not suppliers, and are committed to flexibility and continuous improvement.