About the job

Job summary

The National Archives’ is looking for a Publishing Manager to join its Find Case Law service team at Kew.

The National Archives is responsible for providing public access to Court Judgments and Tribunal Decisions, receiving them for long-term preservation in our digital archive and publishing them on our Find Case Law service. You will join the Find Case Law service team as our publishing manager, responsible for overseeing the publishing service we provide to courts and tribunals.


About the role:

Court records are vital public records. Since the founding of the Public Record Office in 1838, court records have been a large and central part of The National Archives’ collection. From a record keeping perspective, judgments are the most important records of the courts. The judgment records the facts of the case, the decision of the court and the reasons for the decision. Judgments are also an important source of law. In legally significant cases that develop the law, judgments are as important as legislation.  

As the Publishing Manager, you will be responsible for overseeing the publication of these important records, including running the publishing service day to day and managing the editorial team. This involves making sure judgments and decisions are published quickly and accurately, working with clerks, judges and other colleagues in the Judicial Office, MoJ and HMCTS.


About you:

You will enjoy working as part of a team, sharing knowledge, mentoring, directing and motivating colleagues and will have the skills required to provide constructive feedback, explaining complex information clearly.

You will have a good grasp of delivering digital services in a publishing context, a deep appreciation for the proper administration of justice and a strong interest in the law. 

You will have an appreciation of user needs and be proactive in developing improvements to our publishing service.

You will be comfortable working with senior judges, clerks, lawyers, policy officials, administrators, and other stakeholders. You will have excellent communication skills, engaging a range of stakeholders through meetings, email /chat correspondence and phone / video calls.

Job description

Full job description attached (see below).

Person specification

This is a full-time post. However, requests for part-time working, flexible working and job share will be considered.

The Find Case Law team is based within the Digital Archiving Department at TNA, it is a supportive, welcoming department made up of several multidisciplinary agile teams, focused on delivering services that make it possible for everyone to uncover the evidence held within our important records. 

Our place of work is in the beautiful surroundings of Kew, a 10-minute walk from Underground and Overground stations. A combination of onsite and home working is available, and applicants should be able to regularly travel to our Kew site for a minimum of 60% of their work time.

We put people at the forefront of our organisation and are committed to enabling professional development and training for all our colleagues. 

Our strategy sets out our ambition to be an inclusive, entrepreneurial, and disruptive archive.

We would particularly like to encourage applicants from backgrounds currently underrepresented in archives, including those who identify as Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT+), from Black, Asian and minority ethnic cultural backgrounds, those who are neurodivergent, and those with hidden or visible disabilities.

How to apply:

If you are an internal applicant: please do not use the link on this page. Please apply via your employee Workday account.

If you are an external applicant: to submit your application please click the 'Apply at advertiser's site' button on this page.

You will be asked to provide details of your work experience and write a personal statement. In your personal statement please explain, using examples, how you meet the essential criteria given below. You may draw on knowledge, skills, abilities, experience gained from paid work, domestic responsibilities, education, leisure interests and voluntary activities. Please note selection for interview will largely be based on the information you provide in this section.

Essential criteria:

• Experience in ensuring the successful operation of business critical publishing services, which are fast, accurate, agile and resilient.
• Experience in legal publishing and a deep appreciation of the risks and challenges facing legal publishers and the wider justice system.
• An innovative and creative approach to service development, with a proven ability to deliver complex and innovative outcomes. Understanding of the drivers and risks in the development of digital services in government and the justice system.
• Successful track-record in delivering or overseeing publishing services in a complex and challenging service environment to strict deadlines and with a range of external stakeholders, demonstrating excellent interpersonal skills and political sensitivity.
• Strong collaboration and relationship management skills – able to establish excellent working relationships with a range of stakeholders, across the court and tribunal service and in government, to deliver effective service outcomes,
• Outstanding communications skills, both written and oral, to engage with very senior stakeholders and service users, communicating complex information effectively.
• Excellent management skills. The ability to supervise a small internal team (x3 senior editors & x3 publishing editors); able to motivate and develop colleagues to achieve high performance standards; able to work independently whilst having a strong team-work ethic.

Desirable criteria:

• Experience working with legal and regulatory materials, a thorough understanding of legal publishing processes.
• Experience of the technologies underpinning the court judgments publishing service, particularly XML (i.e. LegalDocML).
• A law degree or legal professional qualification would be an advantage, but not essential

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £37,867, The National Archives contributes £10,224 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

Reasonable adjustments:

If a person with disabilities is put at a substantial disadvantage compared to a non-disabled person, we have a duty to make reasonable changes to our processes.

If you need a change to be made so that you can make your application, you should:

• Contact The National Archives via careers@nationalarchives.gov.uk as soon as possible before the closing date to discuss your needs
• Complete the “Assistance required” section in the “Additional requirements” page of your application form to tell us what changes or help you might need further on in the recruitment process. For instance, you may need wheelchair access at interview, or if you’re deaf, a Language Service Professional

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.