About the job

Job summary

Please refer to Job Description

Job description

We encourage applications from people from all backgrounds and aim to have a workforce that represents the wider society that we serve. We pride ourselves on being an employer of choice. We champion diversity, inclusion and wellbeing and aim to create a workplace where everyone feels valued and a sense of belonging. To find out more about how we do this visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity.

Location:    

This position is based at RCJ, London WC2A 2LL / Rolls Building, EC4A 1NL and is eligible for hybrid working (current requirement is at least 60% of working hours each week to be spent in the office, and is subject to business requirements)
Overview of the role:    The Judicial Office
The Judicial Office (JO) reports to, and is accountable, to the Lady Chief Justice and was established in 2006 to provide support to her and to the wider judiciary following the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.  In addition, we support, and are accountable to, the Senior President of Tribunals, whose responsibilities extend to Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The JO is an interesting and unique place to work.  Everything we do is in support of upholding the independence and impartiality of the judiciary. We work closely with HM Courts & Tribunal Service (HMCTS), the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and others across Government as well as with the legal professions.
See JO staff talk about working here

Overview of Judicial HR

Judicial Office Human Resources (JOHR) places Judicial Office Holders (JOH) at the centre of our service, ensuring we are visible, proactive as well as responsive, and that we collaborate with colleagues across the Judicial Office, and beyond to ensure we provide judicial office holders with excellent HR support and professional expertise.
JOHR supports the senior judiciary, leadership judges, and works in partnership with HMCTS and MoJ to ensure the Lady Chief Justice and the Senior President of Tribunals have a properly resourced, visible, and accessible HR service based on the needs of the judiciary.
With a passion for people/operational management and a desire to build an HR generalist foundation for a future career, the post holder will work within the Human Resources Business Partner (HRBP) Organisational Design and Development (OD&D) function being a strategic delivery partner for Senior Tribunal Leadership Judges. 
Whilst we are part of the wider Civil Service HR community, we are not a typical HR team in that everything we do needs to meet the, often complex, needs of around 25,000 members of the judiciary who are office holders and not employees or Civil Servants.  This provides us with a unique and interesting set of HR challenges. It also provides us with unique opportunities to work with the judiciary at all levels and gives us ample opportunity to broaden our HR skills sets, use our HR and business insights to be curious and creative about doing things differently within an environment of continuous learning.

Summary:    

This is a significant strategic HR leadership role requiring high levels of people and HR/business management skills. The role requires a professional approach and must ensure that delivery is in line with the requirements of Civil Service HR, pro-actively role modelling activities and behaviours which promote core MoJ values including diversity and equality of opportunity and supporting and being a positive advocate of the Judicial Office HR Operating Model.
The postholder will work at a strategic level and be responsible for developing and sustaining trusted working relationships with judicial leaders in the Tribunals in support of the delivery of justice.  The HR insights garnered by the post holder will be key in understanding the needs of the judiciary in the Tribunals and will help to shape the Judicial HR offer.

Responsibilities,Activities & Duties:    

•    Develop and maintain a strong working relationship with Chamber Presidents and other senior leadership judges to become a source of trusted advice and support on HR matters.  
•    To act as a change agent to support the JO Organisational Design programme. 
•    Operating as an integral member of the HRBP – OD&D  Team, scanning for emerging trends and acting as an intelligent customer into the wider HR Team on behalf of the judiciary. 
•    Connecting with HRBP colleagues across government to provide holistic HR advice and support where issues cross boundaries of staff and the judiciary. 
•    Work with judicial leaders to help talent management, succession planning and career conversations within their areas of responsibility.
•    Work with the leadership judges to review approaches for identifying and dealing with issues relating to judicial health, welfare, behaviour and performance issues and where necessary suggest changes to those approaches. 
•    Work closely with the respective Chamber Presidents Offices as appropriate, to identify and address relevant HR issues.  
•    Be the principal contact for senior Tribunals judiciary with responsibility to deliver the provision of strategic people management with particular focus on regional/jurisdictional requirements  
•    Working with JO, external stakeholders and the judiciary to manage people aspects of business change programmes and initiatives.
•    Be required to have a clear understanding of the Lady Chief Justice and Senior President Tribunals priorities and be able to translate these into a Tribunals plan that will add value to the local judiciary.
•    Demonstrate commitment to personal continuous development, professional expertise and skill.
•    Future Line Management of a HR Advisor (HEO grade).

Key tasks:

•    Working closely within JOHR to support delivery of a strategic field-based HR service
•    Analysing HR data and applying understanding to decide on an appropriate intervention or course of action and making recommendations.
•    Develop, implement, maintain and review systems and services to ensure delivery of professional excellence. 
•    Increase insights into Chamber trends, and impacts, offering bespoke support, insights and interventions to rectify.
•    Provide strategic overviews back into Judicial Office HR, allowing for accurate forecasting on workflows and demands
•    Formulation of reports which can be fed back into key areas of the organisation
•    Oversight of all record keeping, ensuring compliance with GDPR and data retention policies
•    Ensuring queries are escalated to the right level and JOHR team if required 
•    Responding to queries which require review of numerous policies, T&C’s etc in order to provide accurate advice
•    Demonstrate commitment to continuous development, professional expertise and skill.

Behaviours & Strengths (for Recruitment/Success Profiles):    

Behaviours

Seeing the Bigger Picture
Leadership
Communicating and Influencing
Making Effective Decisions

Essential Knowledge, Experience and Skills:    

•    A change agent, supporting good practice change management; experience of managing change.
•    Ability to work collaboratively and possessing excellent interpersonal and stakeholder management skills; being a skilled influencer with strong customer relationship skills and the ability to confidently handle difficult conversations.
•    Strong resilience and capacity to adapt and respond to adversity.
•    Ability to understand the strategic picture and translate this into action/intervention for business areas
•    Ability to deliver effective outcomes in an ambiguous environment.
•    Extracting, analysing, presenting MI and data to the business to back up people propositions.
•    Excellent communication and listening skills, including the confidence to speak with credibility and authority when operating at a senior level.
•    Awareness of organisational design and development work.
•    Maintain and review systems and service to ensure delivery of professional excellence and establish ways to find and respond to feedback from customers about the service. 
•    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. 
•    Share information as appropriate and act as an intelligent customer for the wider HR service, communicating in a straightforward, honest and engaging manner. 

Desirable Knowledge, Experience and Skills:    

•    Understanding of the judiciary
•    Highly credible HR or operational experience and the skills to support and advise key leaders.  

Technical Skills/Qualifications:    

•    Level 5 qualified / CIPD qualified or willing to work towards. This role can be linked to the HR Apprenticeship (Level 5) and as a route into CIPD qualification.

Security clearance required:    

Security clearance will include a requirement of CTC and DBS

Additional Information:    

The team is based in the Rolls Building, EC4A 1NL / Thomas More Building in the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ), London. The successful candidate will be expected to spend at least 60% of their working hours in the office (this includes court visits and national travel where required). There will be a need to attend meetings with the judiciary (including in person at sites), with meetings often taking place before or after court (before 9.30am and after 4.30pm) so flexibility is required in the role.

This vacancy is using Success Profiles and will assess the Behaviours, Experience and Strengths elements. 

Application stage

As part of the application process, you will be asked to provide a Personal Statement / Statement of Suitability in no more than 1000 words.  Using the job advert as a guide you will be required to provide an overview of transferable skills and / or evidence that would fulfil the role requirements. 
 
You will also be asked to provide information within the ‘Employer/ Activity history’ section of the application form. This is equivalent to the information you would provide on a CV, setting out your career history. 
We will assess you against these behaviours during the application stage:
•    Seeing the Big Picture (250 word limit)
•    Communicating and Influencing (250 word limit)

In the event of a large number of applicants, an initial sift will be conducted on the statement of suitability. Those who are successful in the initial sift will then be scored on all elements of the application.
 
Interview stage 

It is anticipated that interviews will take place in person at the Rolls Building or RCJ in the week of  8th or 15th January 2024 but please note that dates are subject to change.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £45,824, Ministry of Justice contributes £12,784 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, Strengths and Experience.https://justicejobs.tal.net/vx/candidate/cms/About%20the%20MOJ

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

Security

Successful candidates must undergo a criminal record check. Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). 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.