About the job

Job summary

About the Government Legal Department

From energy to security, health to human rights, we help the Government deliver life changing law for citizens.

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.

Job description

About the Division 

The Senior Civil Service (SCS) Performance and Talent Lead role sits within the Strategy, People and Culture (SPC) Division, part of the COO Group within GLD.  There are five principal teams within the Division: Human Resources (HR), Project Delivery & Transformation, Communications, Business Management and Strategy & Governance.  The Division advises, supports and enables GLD lawyers to help the government to govern well within the rule of law.  Our purpose is to support GLD’s people strategies and enable the department to be the best employer for our people. 

GLD’s HR team’s ambition is to build on our commitment, professionalism and expertise so that we can provide first class, customer focussed HR services.  We want to support all GLD staff, promoting a diverse and inclusive culture, and developing inspiring and confident leaders and managers.  By doing this we will provide a strong foundation underpinning the delivery of legal services to the government.  Our purpose is to support the priorities in GLD’s People Strategy, D&I Strategy and other strategies and action plans and enable the department to be the best employer for our people.

The Role

The Senior Civil Service (SCS) Performance and Talent Lead role is a new HR position in the Workforce Strategy Team (WST).  WST includes the currently seven-strong HR Business Partner (HRBP) Team and colleagues who have been working on senior talent management and succession planning, implementation of our D&I Strategy, Action Plan and Health & Wellbeing Action Plan, and an MI Team, working on internal and external data reporting and analysis, including workforce planning.  HR sits within the Director-led Strategy, People and Culture (SPC) Division, which includes Strategy & Governance, Communications, Project Delivery and Transformation, and Business Management, small resource teams supporting GLD Legal Directors.  With the Director-led Finance, Operations and Digital divisional areas, these all come under the new Director General-led Chief Operating Officer (COO) Group.

Working primarily with WST and colleagues from the four other HR teams, including our People Development Team, you will be the point person with coordinating oversight of SCS performance management and talent management policies, guidance and products and in bringing added clarity to the Civil Service and GLD offer, advice and development support available to the members of our SCS, particularly our Deputy Directors (DDs).  GLD has 223 SCS1 and 2 (Deputy Directors and Directors), with now 4 Directors General, all reporting to the Treasury Solicitor (Permanent Secretary).

• Policy lead on SCS performance management, liaising with and advising the HRBP Team as well as Employee Services colleagues.
• Policy lead on SCS talent management and succession planning.
• Governance lead for the planned new senior GLD Committee with oversight of these two areas, merging the existing Talent & Succession and Pay Committees.
• Overseeing the management and full embedding of the recently revised annual SCS performance management and talent management processes, along with the key messaging and data that will underpin the work of the new Committee.
• Lead on ensuring that members of our SCS have a dedicated source of HR advice and support, including through - oversight and on-going development of the “under construction” SCS Hub on Eagle (GLD intranet), including key messages, data and signposted

Person specification

Behaviours

Below are details of the Success Profiles 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:

vManaging a Quality Service (Lead Behaviour)

vCommunicating and Influencing

vDelivering at Pace

vChanging and Improving

 Experience

vExperience of working with senior stakeholders in a service provision and communications and engagement context.

Desirable Criteria

Achieved or working towards CIPD.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £52,769, Government Legal Department contributes £14,248 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.

Application

To apply for this post, you will need to complete the online application process. This should be completed no later than 23:55pm on 14 April 2024 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:

1.An online CV setting out your career history and experience, along with key responsibilities and achievements. The CV will be scored and will assess Experience.

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

• Managing a Quality Service (Lead behaviour)
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace
• Changing and Improving

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 and the online CV / career history. If there are a large number of applications, the sift will be undertaken on the lead criteria, Managing a Quality Service.

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, alongside strength-based questions.

vBehaviour: Managing a Quality Service (Lead behaviour)

vBehaviour: Communicating and Influencing

vBehaviour: Delivering at Pace

vBehaviour: Changing and Improving

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview.

Interviews will 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

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 up to 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.