About the job

Job summary

The Government Legal Department is the largest provider of legal services across government, working on high profile matters that are frequently scrutinised in Parliament and the media. Our work includes: 

• Developing and drafting legislation
• Providing legal advice on policies
• Securing our economic and trade relationships
• Ensuring value from commercial contracts worth billions of pounds
• Providing the Civil Service’s employment law advice 

We are at the heart of delivering the Government’s priorities and our success depends on our people.

GLD is a non-ministerial government department, sponsored by the Attorney General. We are headed by the Treasury Solicitor, our Permanent Secretary and employ nearly 3000 people, including over 2000 legal professionals. Our offices include London, Leeds, Bristol, Croydon and Manchester as well as overseas. We provide specialist legal services including Litigation, Employment and Commercial Law as well as advising most Government Departments on the policies and services they deliver.

GLD also depends on a range of vital corporate services. These are essential to the smooth and efficient running of the Department and provide the foundation to enable GLD to deliver outstanding legal services. Our corporate functions include Strategy, HR, Finance, Digital, Data and Technology, Communications, Security, Commercial and Project delivery. 

Our vision is to be an outstanding legal organisation and a brilliant place to work where everyone can thrive and fulfil their potential. This is an exciting time for GLD, with cutting edge legal work on global issues and a transformation agenda which is ensuring the Department exemplifies the Modern Civil Service.  

To find out more about what we do visit the Government Legal Department’s webpage or have a look at this short film which showcases the breadth of work government lawyers and legal trainees are involved in.

About the Strategy Team

The Government Legal Department (GLD) is the largest provider of legal services across government, working with all the main Whitehall Departments.   From roads to rivers, and health to human rights, our work touches on most aspects of public life. 

The department has more than 14 client-facing advisory teams who provide legal advice on the development, design and implementation of government policies and decisions, draft secondary legislation and work with Parliamentary Counsel on primary legislation.  Our cross-cutting expert service groups for Litigation, Employment and Commercial Law provide specialist legal services to a wide range of government departments and public bodies. 

We are a non-ministerial government department with more than 2,300 employees, around 1,800 of whom are solicitors or barristers. The department is based in London with teams in Croydon, Bristol, Manchester, and Leeds.  

Our vision is to be an outstanding legal organisation, committed to the highest standards of service and professionalism and also a brilliant place to work where we can all thrive and fulfil our potential. The Strategy, People & Culture directorate supports and enables GLD to help the government to govern well within the rule of law. 

Strategy, People & Culture is made up of a wide range of teams and professionals, who together support GLD to deliver a brilliant legal service for our clients across government. There are five principal teams – Project Delivery, Communications, Strategy & Business Management, Private Office & Governance, and Human Resources. 

The work of the Strategy Team supports the Board, Committees and the Strategic Leadership Group to provide strategic direction for the department, and to deliver GLD’s Strategy effectively. We ensure that GLD’s work is aligned to government priorities and that senior leaders have the insights they need for GLD to deliver its key priorities within the department and across government. Our developing role is one designed to sharpen senior leaders’ strategic vision, supporting oversight, and informing decision-making. We highlight the achievements and challenges that GLD faces. This work helps our senior leaders scrutinise GLD’s performance.

We undertake strategy development and projects to support GLD, with a renewed focus on the longer term, as well as ensuring the department can respond rapidly to emerging or urgent issues. We are a friendly and busy team, working closely with senior leaders across GLD. 

Job description

The Role

The successful candidate will be joining a small team and will need to be flexible as work priorities change, to support overall delivery of our team’s objectives. This role will involve a wide range of work, including (but not limited to) the duties outlined below. This is an excellent opportunity for those looking to improve their policy and strategy skills and gain exposure to the most senior levels of government, including with the Permanent Secretary.

Duties include:

• Supporting the Policy Lead in their role as the main sponsorship relationship holder with the Attorney General’s Office.
• Working with the Permanent Secretary to support her in her role as Head of the Government Legal Profession.

This could include:

• Building relationships across government, including with the Attorney General’s Office, the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.
• Supporting the administration of the quarterly Government Legal Profession leadership meetings.
• Supporting the delivery of the yearly Government Legal Profession Conference.
• Implementing the outcomes of strategy initiatives and reviews.
• Supporting project management across the team’s projects and other work.
• Writing submissions and briefings for the Attorney General Solicitor General and GLD Executive Team.
• Working with a large range of stakeholders and colleagues across the department, including at the most senior level.
• Ensuring join-up on strategic initiatives across the department.
• Responding to Treasury Solicitor and Board priorities.
• Developing and embedding strategic capability across GLD.
• Ensuring good governance across all work streams.
• Monitoring and reporting of strategy work across GLD.
• Document management, including project records governance papers and decisions.
• Linking in with Strategy colleagues across government to share best practice, and promote the work of GLD.
• Supporting the preparation of Board, ExCo and other committee papers.
• Reporting against strategy into committees, annual report Business Plan.

Person specification

Behaviours- Essential

    Below are details of the Success Profile that make up this role.

    You will be expected to provide evidence to show how you meet the criteria at interview and/or selection stage.

    We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

Seeing the Bigger Picture (Lead Behaviour)

• Understand the strategic drivers for your area of work.
• Align activities to contribute to wider organisational priorities.
• Remain alert to emerging issues and trends which might impact your work area.
• Seek out and share experiences to develop knowledge of the team’s business area.
• Understand how the strategies and activities of the team create value and meet the diverse needs of all stakeholders.

Communicating and Influencing

• Communicate in a straightforward, honest and engaging manner, choosing appropriate styles to maximise understanding and impact.
• Encourage the use of different communication methods, including digital resources and highlight the benefits, including ensuring cost effectiveness.
• Ensure communication has a clear purpose and takes into account people’s individual needs.
• Share information as appropriate and check understanding. Show positivity and enthusiasm towards work, encouraging others to do the same.
• Ensure that important messages are communicated with colleagues and stakeholders respectfully, taking into consideration the diversity of interests.

Delivering at Pace

• Show a positive approach to keeping the whole team’s efforts focused on the top priorities.
• Promote a culture of following the appropriate procedures to ensure results are achieved on time whilst still enabling innovation.
• Ensure the most appropriate resources are available for colleagues to use to do their job effectively.
• Regularly monitor your own and team’s work against milestones ensuring individual needs are considered when setting tasks.
• Act promptly to reassess workloads and priorities when there are conflicting demands to maintain performance.
• Allow individuals the space and authority to meet objectives, providing additional support where necessary, whilst keeping overall responsibility.

Working Together

• Encourage joined up teamwork within own team and across other groups.
• Establish professional relationships with a range of stakeholders.
• Collaborate with these to share information, resources and support. I
• Invest time to develop a common focus and genuine positive team spirit where colleagues feel valued and respect one another.
• Put in place support for the wellbeing of individuals within the team, including consideration of your own needs.
• Make it clear to all team members that bullying, harassment and discrimination are unacceptable. Actively seek and consider input of people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives.

Experience - Essential

• We are looking for people who can research, bring creativity, bigger picture and structured thinking skills to the team. You may have transferrable skills that you can bring across.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skill.
• Experience of working effectively across organisational boundaries.
• Good team player, with willingness to flex and support priority work as required.
• Strong organisational skills.
• Good knowledge of Microsoft applications, including Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Desirable

• Experience of policy or strategy development is desirable but not essential.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £31,393, Government Legal Department contributes £8,476 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours and Experience.

Application

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process. This should be completed no later than Monday 8th January 2024 at 12:00 noon and will involve completing the sections in the online application outlined below:  

During the application stage you will be assessed against the skills and experience outlined below.

To apply for this position, candidates are asked to submit an online CV setting out your career history, with key responsibilities, experience and achievements – this will be scored.

Please provide examples (in no more than 250 words) for each behaviour listed against the person/specification essential criteria. 

• Behaviour: Seeing the Big Picture (Lead behaviour)
• Behaviour: Delivering at Pace
• Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing
• Behaviour: Working Together

Selection Process

After the closing date, the appointing panel shall assess candidates’ suitability for the role based on evidence provided in their application against the behaviours and experience outlined in the person specification.

Please note, if large number of applications are received, we will sift on the Lead Behaviour alone.

Interview

Should you be successful in being invited to interview, you will be assessed on your performance in all essential criteria as listed in the Person Specification/Essential Criteria and strength-based questions.

• Behaviour: Seeing the Big Picture (Lead behaviour)
• Behaviour: Delivering at Pace
• Behaviour: Communicating and Influencing
• Behaviour: Working Together

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview.

Interviews will probably take place remotely via video conference, full details of the interview format will be provided to shortlisted candidates prior to interview. The timeline later in this pack indicates the date by which decisions are expected to be made, and all shortlisted candidates will be advised of the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.

Offer

Regardless of the outcome, we will notify all candidates as soon as possible after the final interview.

We appoint in strict order of merit. If you meet the minimum criteria for this position but are not successful for a post, you will be placed on the reserve list for 12 months.  We then may contact you to see if you are interested in a post at the same, or a lower grade, in GLD should one arise.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria. The Civil Service also offers a Redeployment Interview Scheme to civil servants who are at risk of redundancy, and who meet the minimum requirements for the advertised vacancy.