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.

His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service 

Job Title: Personal Assistant

Pay Span:  Executive Officer

Salary: London (within M25): £31,169 - £32,760

Location & Terms of appointment

This is a permanent post based in the Royal Courts of Justice, London.

Background and key purpose of the role

The King’s Bench Division is one of the three divisions of the High Court, together with the Chancery Division and Family Division. It is the largest of the three divisions and has the most varied work, which consists mainly of personal injury, negligence (including professional negligence), breach of statutory duty, media and communications claims including defamation, other tortious conduct, breach of contract and breaches of the Human Rights Act 1998.

The judiciary allocated to the King’s Bench Division consists of High Court Judges, including the President of the King’s Bench, and there are Judges who are referred to as Masters, one of which is the Senior Master.  A Master is a Judge who at first instance in the High Court deals with all aspects of a claim, from its issue until trial, the trial is before either a High Court Judge or a Master.

Role Purpose 

An exciting opportunity has arisen to act as the Personal Assistant to the Senior Master of the King’s Bench Division.  This is a business-critical post, where the post-holder will need to manage conflicting priorities and use their initiative. The post holder will work in a fast-paced and exciting environment where you will need to anticipate and resolve issues, prioritise competing demands and successfully support your principal so they are able to deliver their responsibilities. The post-holder will be required to liaise with the Senior Master and other judges, and stakeholders both inside and outside of HMCTS. Discretion is important in this role given the variety of information and ceremonial areas.

This role will suit candidates who are flexible, resilient, and pragmatic with strong interpersonal and organisational skills. You will be comfortable managing your own workload whilst enjoying being part of a wider King’s Bench teams.

Key responsibilities may include:

• Diary management, including managing meeting requests, organising meetings and making the travel requirements as needed. You will be expected to look ahead to identify busy periods and work that is likely to demand time and proactively manage diaries to align with that.
• Overseeing inboxes as required, including identifying anything urgent or important which needs to be dealt with quickly; and taking responsibility for commissioning and collating responses to requests for information or action. You will therefore need to set up and maintain an effective filing and archiving system and be able to respond to enquiries and requests.
• Develop strong working relationships with the Masters of the King’s Bench, Private Offices of the Heads of Divisions, specifically the President of the King’s Bench Division, and their wider teams. You will be required to handle any sensitive information in a confidential manner.
• Providing broader administrative support, including ensuring that papers and other relevant material are available in advance of meetings, and liaise regarding travel arrangements. You will also be required to provide support to the Masters’ of the King’s Bench Division, including supporting team meetings.
• Taking ownership of tasks on behalf of the Senior Master. You will need to create effective systems to ensure work preparation and attendance of ceremonial events are tracked and delivered on time, communicating with relevant stakeholders regularly to prioritise and agree deadlines and escalating where necessary when these are missed.
• The Senior Master holds the ceremonial office of King’s Remembrancer. As part of this role, you will be required to provide administrative support to the Chief Clerk to the King’s Remembrancer in relation to annual ceremonial duties.

Person Specification:

Given close working with the judiciary, senior officials across Government, and a wide range of other stakeholders, the post holder will be expected to be able to communicate clearly, both orally and in writing. The successful candidate must be able to demonstrate excellent organisational and inter-personal skills, whilst managing a busy inbox. The role is fast paced, challenging, and stimulating, offering significant scope for personal development and stretch. The post-holder will be required to manage conflicting priorities, manage confidential and sensitive information. The post-holder will be required to work collaboratively with the wider Masters’ Listing team, drawing links with colleagues across the Judicial Office, HMCTS and wider stakeholders as necessary. The ability to build and maintain resilient relationships against shifting priorities and a demanding workload is important.

Skills and Experience

Essential:

• A passion for excellent service delivery.
• Has great attention to detail and an ability to work at pace calmly. 
• Excellent organisational and task management skills.
• Confident building strong personal relationships across a large and complex organisation.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Can work on own initiative and prioritise workload to meet conflicting objectives.
• Highly resilient and takes “can do” attitude to resolving issues.
• Proficient Microsoft Office software skills.

Desirable:

• Experience of working in an administrative or business support role. 

Application Process

To apply for this position please complete the online application form, ensuring you provide the following:

• A 250-word suitability statement against each of the following Success Profile Behaviours (Level 2):
• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together

In the event we receive a large volume of applications, we will sift using the Communicating and Influencing Behaviour as the lead assessment criteria.

If selected for interview, you will be tested against the following Success Profile Behaviours (Level 2):

• Communicating and Influencing
• Managing a Quality Service
• Working Together

Interviews will also test 3 Strengths.

Further information on Success Profile Behaviours and Strengths, as well as the required standards for this post (Level 2), can be found at:

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

If we receive applications from more suitable candidates than we have vacancies for at this time, we may hold suitable applicants on a reserve list for 12 months, and future vacancies requiring the same skills and experience could be offered to candidates on the reserve list without a new competition.

We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce and pride ourselves as being an employer of choice. To find out more about how we champion diversity and inclusion in the workplace, visit:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice/about/equality-and-diversity

The MoJ is proud to be Level 3 Disability Confident. Disability Confident is the approach through which we offer guaranteed interviews for all people with disabilities meeting the minimum criteria for the advertised role as set out in the job description.

Terms & Conditions:

Working Hours / Pattern:

These operational roles are customer facing, requiring successful applicants to be office based to provide HMCTS services to the public.  Standard full time working hours are 37 hours per week. HMCTS welcomes part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns, where they meet the demands of the role and are agreed prior to appointment. All applications for part-time, flexible and job-sharing working patterns will be treated fairly and, on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the MoJ’s Flexible Working policy. The post holder is required to work in a flexible way and undertake any other duties reasonably requested by line management which are commensurate with the grade and level of responsibility of this post.

Excess Fares and Relocation Allowances

This job is not eligible for relocation allowances, but excess fares may be considered in accordance with MoJ’s excess fares allowance policy.

Further Information:

The Civil Service Code 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. The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equality of opportunity.  As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.

Appointment to the Civil Service is governed by the Civil Service Commission’s Recruitment Principles. If you feel a department has breached the requirements of the Recruitment Principles and would like to raise this, please contact SSCL (Moj-recruitment-vetting-team in the first instance. If the role has been advertised externally (outside of the Civil Service) and you are not satisfied with the response, you may bring your complaint to the Commission. For further information on bringing a complaint to the Civil Service Commission, please visit their web pages: http://civilservicecommission.independent.gov.uk/civil-service-recruitment/complaints/

To Discuss the position

If you would like any further information or wish to discuss this post, please contact Elaine Harbert via email Elaine.Harbert1@Justice.gov.uk or call 0207 947 6911.

Person specification

Please refer to Job Description

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £31,169, HM Courts and Tribunals Service contributes £8,446 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 Strengths.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. 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.