Senior Policy Adviser, Youth Justice (up to 4 posts)
SEO
Youth Justice and Offender Policy
The Youth Justice and Offender Policy Directorate is recruiting permanently for SEO Senior Policy Advisers on youth justice. This campaign is open to current civil servants on level transfer and suitable candidates on promotion.
Location:
Successful candidates will have the option to be based at one of the following locations:
- 102 Petty France, London
- 5 Wellington Place, Leeds
Occasional travel between the two locations may be required. We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your base location (102 Petty France or 5 Wellington Place Leeds).
Ways of Working
At the MoJ we believe and promote alternative ways of working, these roles are available as:
- Full-time, part-time or the option to job share
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Flexible working patterns
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
Salary
Existing Civil Servants will have their salary calculated in accordance with the Department’s pay on transfer / pay on promotion rules.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ)
MoJ is the largest government department, employing over 90,000 people with a budget of approximately £10 billion. Each year, millions of people use our services across the UK - including at 500 courts and tribunals, and 133 prisons in England and Wales.
Further information can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ministry-of-justice
The Work of the Youth Justice Policy Unit
The Youth Justice Policy Unit is a team of around 40 people responsible for policy development across the whole youth justice system. We are a friendly, high-performing team committed to making a real difference for some of the country’s most vulnerable children. We are recruiting for multiple SEO Senior Policy Advisers across a variety of roles.
The past decade has seen an impressive reduction in the number of children entering the youth justice system. However, beneath this headline, t are clear indications that t are challenges to be tackled across the system to rehabilitate children effectively and prevent reoffending. For example, our most recent statistics show that around two-thirds of children leaving custody committed another offence within 12 months.
The aim of the youth justice system is to prevent offending by children and to support those who do offend in turning around their lives. The Youth Justice Policy Unit has a mixture of policy roles and roles running programmes. Areas of focus include:
- Prevention, early intervention and community justice – working across Government and with Arm’s Length Bodies on policies and programmes to address the needs of children at an early stage, and work to prevent offending.
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Youth justice service funding and performance – owning policy around ensuring the sufficient funding of youth justice services and effective monitoring and oversight.
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Courts and sentencing – improving outcomes for children through the courts systems, custodial and community sentencing, the use of remand, and the criminal records regime.
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Reform of our youth custodial estate – improving the existing estate, as well as the delivery of secure schools, a new type of custodial provision for children.
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Youth justice strategy – including monitoring and coordinating delivery of the recently published Youth Justice system reform and delivery plan: Cutting Youth Crime, Changing Young Lives.
Senior Policy Adviser, Youth Justice - the role
As a Senior Policy Adviser in the Youth Justice Policy Unit, you will play a central role in designing and implementing policies that impact the Youth Justice System. This involves policy development, research and briefing, project oversight and partnership working. We are seeking candidates with policy experience, a collaborative approach and with a keen interest in criminal justice or social policy.
Key responsibilities will include:
- Policy development – developing innovative approaches to make a real difference to children’s lives and to keep children, victims and communities safe. You will draw on different sources of evidence and data to inform your work and demonstrate effective problem-solving approaches.
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Advice, briefing and correspondence – ensuring Ministers, senior leaders, Parliamentarians and stakeholders are given clear, well-researched and timely advice on live issues and areas of concern. This work is likely to include oral and written briefings, Parliamentary Questions and correspondence and feeding a youth justice perspective into wider work across MOJ and other government departments.
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Project oversight – scoping, planning and managing your work through project management techniques: managing risks, issues and dependencies and monitoring and progress. This can include reviews and research-led projects
Partnership working – you will work - ly with partners in the youth justice system and beyond to resolve complex, cross-cutting issues. Key partners include the Youth Justice Board, the Youth Custody Service within HMPPS, HM Courts and Tribunal Service, and other government departments, as well as frontline staff, the judiciary, and the charitable and children’s rights sectors.
Some of the posts may also include line management responsibilities and we strongly encourage participation in our corporate work, for example, on promoting staff wellbeing or learning and development.
Successful candidates will be matched into specific areas of responsibility, taking into account business need, as well as individual fit and preferences. All staff in the team are expected to be willing to work flexibly, in response to Ministerial priorities, wider team pressures and the events of the day. Candidates may be required to temporarily move to another role to support business need.
Skills and Experience
Essential:
- Ability to set or support strategic direction in a fast-paced and complex policy environment, while working with a wide range of stakeholders, both internal and external.
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Politically astute, with experience of influencing and managing stakeholders at different levels with both credibility and effectiveness. This includes an ability to brief senior leaders and decision makers - verbally and in writing - on complex and high-profile policies.
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Ability to support the delivery of complex programmes of work, ideally with experience of wider considerations such as governance, planning, project management, risk management, finances and resources.
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Confidence developing and using an appropriate evidence base to inform policy development and delivery.
Desirable:
- An understanding of the youth justice system.
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Experience of working on criminal justice or related issues.
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Experience working in a policy environment.
Candidates applying from HMPPS should note that the Ministry of Justice does not have the same conditions of employment as HMPPS. It is the candidate’s responsibility to ensure they are aware of the terms and conditions they will adopt should they be successful.
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.
Application process
You will be assessed against the Civil service success profiles framework.
You must ensure that any evidence submitted as part of your application, including your CV, statement of suitability and behaviour examples, are truthful and factually accurate. Please note that plagiarism can include presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own.
Experience
You will be asked to provide a CV during the application process in order to assess any demonstrable experience, career history and achievements that are relevant to the role.
You will also be asked to upload a Statement of Suitability of no more than 750 words stating what you would bring to the role, with reference to the Skills and Experience listed above.
Behaviours
During the application process you will be asked to provide an example of how you have met the following behaviour(s) (see Annex A for more information):
- Seeing the Bigger Picture
Please also refer to the CS Behaviours framework for more details at this grade:
CS Behaviours 2018
Should we receive a large number of applications, we will sift primarily on the Statement of Suitability and the lead behaviour of Seeing the Bigger Picture. Successful applicants will then be invited to an interview, testing both behaviours and strengths.
Candidates invited to Interview
Please note that interviews will be carried out remotely.
You will be assessed against the following behaviours at the interview stage w you will be asked to provide examples of how you have demonstrated them. In addition, you will also be asked strength-based questions
Behaviours:
- Seeing the Bigger Picture
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Making Effective Decisions
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Communicating and Influencing
It may help to use one or more examples of a piece of work you have completed or a situation you have been in and use the WHO or STAR model to explain:
- WHO - What it was? How you approached the work/situation? What the Outcomes were, what did you achieve? Or
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STAR - What was the Situation? What were the Tasks? What Action did you take? What were the Results of your actions?
Strengths:
It is difficult to prepare for strength type questions. However, you can think through your answers, focus on your achievements and aspects you enjoy and decide how these can be applied in the organisation and role. While strengths questions are shorter and we do not expect a full STAR response, the panel is interested in your first reaction to the question and information or reasoning to support this. Further information on Civil Service Strengths can be found .
Interviews are expected to take place in July.
Contact information
Please do get in touch if you would like to know more about the role or what it is like working in our team: [email protected]
Annex A - The STAR method
Using the STAR method can help you give examples of relevant experience that you have. It allows you to set the scene, show what you did, and how you did it, and explain the overall outcome.
Situation - Describe the situation you found yourself in. You must describe a specific event or situation. Be sure to give enough detail for the job holder to understand.
W
- are you?
Who was t- with you?
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What had happened?
Task - The job holder will want to understand what you tried to achieve from the situation you found yourself in.
- What was the task that you had to complete and why?
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What did you have to achieve?
Actions - What did you do? The job holder will be looking for information on what you did, how you did it and why. Keep the focus on you. What specific steps did you take and what was your contribution? Remember to include how you did it, and the behaviours you used. Try to use “I” rather than “we” to explain your actions that lead to the result. Be careful not to take credit for something that you did not do.
Results - Don’t be shy about taking credit for your behaviour. Quote specific facts and figures. Explain how the outcome benefitted the organisation or your area. Make the outcomes easily understandable.
- What results did the actions produce?
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What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your goals?
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Was it a successful outcome? If not, what did you learn from the experience?
Keep the situation and task parts brief. Concentrate on the action and the result. If the result was not entirely successful describe what you learned from this and what you would do differently next time. Make sure you focus on your strengths.
