Since August 2000, Baroness Usha Prashar, CBE has been the first civil service commissioner. In this role she leads the work of the civil service commissioners who are responsible for contributing to the development of an effective and impartial civil service and supporting its core values by giving an assurance that appointments into the civil service are made on merit on the basis of fair and open competition and by promoting the civil service code and hearing appeals.
Usha was made a Life Peer in 1999. From October 1997 to October 2000 she was the executive chairman of the Parole Board of England and Wales.

From 1991 to 1997, Usha had a portfolio of activities which included membership of the royal commission on criminal justice, the Lord Chancellor's advisory committee on legal education and conduct, and the Arts Council, where she chaired the Arts Council committee on combined arts and the cultural diversity panel. For eight years she was a non-executive director of Channel 4 and a non-executive director of the Energy Saving Trust for six years. From 1993 to 1996 she was a member of the Ealing Hounslow and Hammersmith HA.

Usha was the director of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations from 1986 to 1991, an umbrella body for voluntary organisations in England. Between 1984 and 1986, Usha was a fellow with the Policy Studies Institute, where her research included enquiry into primary health care in London funded by the King's Fund, which resulted in a report: Acheson and After - Primary Health Care in the Inner City.

As the director of Runnymede Trust from 1976 to 1984, Usha had enormous influence in the development of social and public policy affecting minorities. From 1971 to 1976, she was a conciliation officer with the former Race Relations Board.