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.

Judicial Appointments Commission – Senior Policy Advisor

Do you want to play a key role in selecting judges of the future? Are you passionate about fairness and consistency, with excellent stakeholder engagement skills? If the answer is yes, you could be exactly who we’re looking for to join our dynamic policy team.

The Role

We’re looking for a Senior Policy Advisor to help us deliver high quality recruitment campaigns at pace. As an independent public body, the Judicial Appointments Commission is responsible for designing, planning and running recruitment campaigns to select judges in the courts and tribunals, up to and including the High Court, as well as non-legal tribunal members. You can read more about our work at our website: http://judicialappointments.gov.uk

With a new recruitment campaign launched every couple of weeks, and statutory responsibility to ensure we select candidates on merit and through fair and open competition, its essential that our processes are robust, inclusive, and attractive to candidates from the widest possible backgrounds.

Our Senior Policy Advisors play a pivotal role in helping us to achieve that. They work with our commissioners, selection exercise teams and members of the judiciary to make sure our shortlisting and interview materials are challenging, fair and fulfil our statutory responsibilities. They use their excellent stakeholder engagement skills to advise colleagues across the organisation, and beyond, on how to implement JAC policies correctly, and even help us to develop new ones so that we can ensure that our recruitment campaigns offer a consistent and high-quality experience for all applicants.

Main Responsibilities

Reporting to the Head of Selection Policy, while not an exhaustive list, the role of JAC Senior Policy Advisor includes:

• Providing advice, briefing, and guidance for Commissioners, senior staff and operational teams on selection exercise process and policy matters;
• Development, drafting, presentation, and delivery of new policy relating to the JAC selection process and selection tools;
• Ensuring that the JAC’s selection processes are fair and free from bias, working with equality and operational leads and Commissioners to meet the JAC’s statutory duties;
• Maintaining ownership of key delivery materials, templates and guidance relating to selection policy;
• Regularly reviewing and quality assuring the selection exercise process, liaising regularly with selection exercise teams to ensure best practice is understood and followed;
• Secretariat of the JAC Advisory Group, an external group of judges and legal professionals who assist in the quality assurance of our selection tools;
• Managing requests to seek legal advice from the in-house legal team;
• Providing support to the Head of Selection Policy and wider team as required.

Essential Criteria

• Ability to engage and communicate confidently with senior staff, Board members, and the ability to build constructive relationships with a variety of internal and external partners and other stakeholders;
• Experience and understanding of working to published procedures, or operational policy, in a public sector environment;
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and ability to target communications to a range of audiences.
• Strong IT skills, especially MS Word, MS Teams and Excel and the ability to quickly develop the skills to work with new IT solutions.

Desirable criteria

• Knowledge and understanding of recruitment and selection processes would be advantageous but is not essential.

What we can offer you

We offer a range of benefits including an attractive annual leave allowance, flexible and hybrid working opportunities, and choice of pension schemes. We actively encourage all staff to undertake learning and development as part of their personal objectives.

While the JAC is an independent executive non-departmental public body, we are considered an arms-length body of the Ministry of Justice and share many of the same policies, processes and terms and conditions as Civil Servants employed directly by the MoJ. This includes being part of the MoJ pay remit, enabling transferees from other government departments to retain their continuity of service and Civil Service Pension arrangements.

Office Attendance

JAC staff are currently working in a hybrid way with a minimum of 2 days per week in the office in line with Government policy. The JAC offices are located at Clive House, Petty France, London, SW1H 9AJ.

Recruitment Process

We’ll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process

• Communicating and Influencing
• Making Effective Decisions
• Changing and Improving
• Delivery at Pace

Application process

• Your CV
• A statement of suitability explaining why you are interested in the role and the skills and experience you will bring to it (500 words max)
• Written evidence of the following three behaviours: Communicating and Influencing, Making Effective Decisions, and Changing and Improving (250 words max per behaviour) see more information here.

Sift

Applications will be sifted based on the CV, Statement of Suitability and the 3 behaviours: Communicating and Influencing, Making Effective Decisions, and Changing and Improving.

If a large number of applications are received, we will sift on the CV, statement of suitability and lead behaviour which is Making Effective Decisions.

Interview

At interview you we will assess you against 4 behaviours: Communicating and Influencing, Making Effective Decisions, Changing and Improving, and Delivery at Pace. You will also be asked about your experience.

You can find out more about the Civil Service success profiles here.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/success-profiles

Applicants invited for interview will be required to undertake a brief work exercise either in advance or on the day of the interview, as part of the selection process. More details will be provided if you are invited to interview.

Interviews are expected to take place in early June 2024

Interviews will be conducted remotely via Microsoft Teams. More details on the arrangements will be provided to candidates invited to interview.

Reserve List

As well as appointing to the vacancy listed above, we may place other candidates on a 12-month reserve list for future vacancies.

Further Information

If after reading this job description you require any further information, or have any questions about the recruitment campaign, please contact the JAC Recruitment Team: Recruitment@judicialappointments.gov.uk

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 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. 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.